For the western audience the fact that FFXI has no servers over here is a real issue. To top that they do not have proper support for Nvida graphics cards. It was a stuttering hell that I had to drop, real shame, if you live out east and don’t have a Nvidia card go for it.
Well thats' a blatant BS lie, I've used nVidia since forever, and put close to 4 solid years of subscription into FFXI and never once had an issue!
In my opinion an MMO that was totally forgotten, since I have never seen an article about it here, is Ragnarok Online. It still has a lot of players, especially jRO which have 45,000~70,000 online players at any time. What is more, there are currently many different things going on, Ragnarok Renewal update (totally changed mechanics so they can fit in the current MMO's reality) or implementation of 3rd jobs (Ranger, Warlock, Sorcerer, Royal Guard, Arch Bishop. etc.). And surely, we can't forget about recently added instances or new world called Jutenheim. Many, many things have changed in RO so maybe it's a good idea to look into them and write some articles, this game is really good, especially when you compare it to those new MMOs that are coming out. They aren't as unique as RO and they neither have such a wide content nor great features. If anybody here is interested in new things in RO, you should visit kRO (www.ragnarok.co.kr) or iROwiki (http://forums.irowiki.org/).
I'll add one, Haven and Hearth, a 2 man developed indy mmo. Alpha stage but not too many bugs and the gameplay is so, unique, that it's instantly took me away from my Ragnarok and Atlantica addiction for days since I found it. Complicated, intense crafting and settlement game, very nice and a very relaxing and unique change of pace.
Maple Story needs freaking joystick/gamepad support. I have to used a third party emulator to make it work with my SFIV madcatz gamepad. It's a great little game though and once you're well lazied up in your couch or bed with a glass of wine and just hacking and slashing away, it's a pretty fun game :P
I disagree with the authors opinion that DAOC has been overlooked.
When it was in beta it was eagerly anticipated by the large majority of people still playing Everquest. I recall a great many positive messages on the EQ forums I visited daily from people going on and on about DAOC and all the things it offered that EQ didn't. When DAOC came out it prompted EQ to change the way they showed the populations of their servers. They no longer showed the actual numbers because subscriptions were falling from everyone going to DAOC.
I played DAOC for around 3 years from its release. The game was very fun but in my opinion the meddling and mismanagement by Mythic lead to the games slow demise. The way they reacted to issues turned a great many people off. The worst of which and its a problem that still affects them in Warhammer;
1. Populating Imbalance
Mythic would try to alleviate this by offering free /level 20 & 30 characters to anyone that had a 50th on underpopulated realms. The underpopulated realms also received levelling bonuses to exp and drop rates. This never worked. It just made the lower level bg's packed with twinks but the people mostly didn't bother to level up and stay with the server. They would later drop this entirely.
also,
When the game is based on pvp and one side makes up 50% or more of the population allowing them to raid your frontier daily with 300-500 people while you can barely get 20 people to fight back it makes pvp non too enticing.
2. Constant Nerfs
Mythics method of balancing was to nerf one class into oblivion while making its counterparts better. This made people either quit the game entirely (myself included) or they just quit playing that particular class and joined whichever realm currently was winning with a FOTM class.
Secondly, FFXI wasn't overlooked the game just plain sucks. Thats why people don't play it.
Why does it suck ? Allow me to elaborate;
1. You obtain a fancy suit of armor at level 10 that looks the same as the fancy suit of armor with much better stats that you get at 20th. Everyone looks the same. In MMO's where most people strive to look unique everyone is a carbon copy of the other.
2. The economy was ruined from the get go. It was out for a year in japan before coming to North America. New players enter a game where the farmers have perma camped newb zones so they can put newb items at ridiculous prices. In some cases a level 4 item was listed at 10 x the amount as level 50 items that were considerably better.
3. Trying to play with people who didn't speak the language can prove to be quite tedious, and in some cases when the japanese players knew you weren't japanese they automatically excluded you.
4. The graphics looked like playstation era quality and the game content required that you follow a storyline to progress. As for progression levelling was extremely slow and you couldn't solo post 30th, well you could but it was even worse, and since you almost required a group to progress see point 3.
Interesting mix of titles there ... would add Istaria(Horizons) to that mix as well ... truly amazed me that the game is still around and kicking after all these years (and all the issues that it has had ... but as someone stated elsewhere "It truly is a labor of love.) They have a free account option, still updating and adding to it ... Considering its the only game to truly be a Dragon ... the game is one to try if you like crafting and a great small community
Whoah wait. Horizons is still around? I thought that collapsed after they closed up Horizons and then some scam company had taken over and started ripping people off and then closed up again.
Kordesh not only still alive but thriving under new ownership and lots of current new content and a huge client upgrade. If its a game you once liked I'd give it another look, its not quite the same game that launched but its still a great time. Have redone the whole strter setup and testing to release T2 revamp, could be worth checking out.
Guess I should add its called Istaria Chronicles of the Gifted now not Horizons anymore.
Sorry Khrymson but why should I lie, I wanted to play FF and was very disappointed? Maybe the cause of the dreadful lag I got In FF was not what I thought but they do only have servers out east and the Nvida card issue is well known. I did a google on this after it happened to me. I have a very up to date rig btw and a 8meg broadband connection.
You may not have any problems but that does not mean no one else has.
Anyway, I don't see how some of the games on the list are there.
Is maple story supposed to be good or something? I've played it before, it's one of the worst games ever made. It's one of those games for kids I think, because the amount of grinding in that game is insane. It's not even the fact that theres a grind, but the fact that the grind is so trivial. I mean, you just run up to random NPCs and mash your attack button, and there is little variability in NPC combat.
It's an interesting MMORPG, but it's a horrible korean grinder.
Not to mention there is no immersion factor in a 2D game like Maple Story. It's too cartoony for you to feel it is real.
I guess those are the main reasons Maple Story shouldn't be listed as a good MMORPG.
I'm not reading through all the comments, so I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned...
You have a little bit of false info in there...Runescape - "...option for full loot pvp..." sorry but that is just not the case anymore. Dec 10, 2007 Jagex decided to remove the wilderness and free trades due to RWT problems, and in doing so got rid of the "option for full loot pvp". You can no longer loot everything that your victim was carrying (or everything but 1, 3 or 4 items). And it's rare that you get anything good from pking, during the days of the wilderness I had always made profit from going pking(even if I died, I would make back the money I lost + some later that day). However, BH craters/pvp worlds/BH worlds/etc., I have lost probably 15M-20M just in supplies, and another 20M+ in gear (mainly from getting picked off by ppl 10 lvls above me in pvp worlds ~stupid barrage + d claws..all that most ppl know how to use now adays~). But the point is, the reward for the majority of the PK's are things that mostly everyone leaves on the ground, such as low level armor/weapons/food. So your not getting tons of rune armor/weps, super pots, sharks etc. (those items made pvp profitable, pking items like dfs' and godswords were just great days).
FFXI...after reading comment here I thought I'd try the free trial.
PlayOnline. O...M...F...G...!!! What a complete disaster of a registration system/front end ROFLMFAO! I mean, really guys??? I've not felt a disturbance in the online mmo Force like this since...NEVER! *boggle*
Anyway, get past the craptacular console craziness...several extra downloads & restarts later...FFXI is finally about to start!...?
21438 (!!!) files to download to get the trial clent up to date. After 10 mins on my fairly fast dsl only 100 or so files d/led. I mean, WTF? ... WTF? .... WTFFFFFFFF??????
Do these marketing morons who pull this kinda shit just do it to piss potential customers off?
""Hey ya know what'd be real funny man? Let's make prospective paying customers download 2-2.5GB of client files...then let's jerk them around with the most unintuitive, convoluted online rego system we can devise & just when they think they're finally about to play the game...make them d/l another 2GB+ of files to get the client up to date!"
Do the total idiots who set up these trials stop to think for just 1 second that maybe, just maybe, this is costing them potential customers?
Why TF do they not keep their trial clients up to date FFS!!!??? (or at least in the same year as the release version!)
<utterly, totally bewildered & disgusted>
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's true, even for a blind man. ^DareDevil^
Honestly, these games aren;t under the radar. There's no interest in this story, I bet. I clicked to see what I was missing only to be whacked with dated products that we've played and moved on from for a reason.
This is a game under the radar. Best skill system ever. I dont recall ever seeing a game with such a diverse set of tradeskills. (Lumberjacking, Carpentry, foraging, planting, harvesting, baking, mixing, weaving, skinning, leatherworking, mining, smithing,... etc.)
Grab a blueberry seed, plant the seed, cast nurish to help it grow faster and more plentiful, take your harvest of blueberries and bake them into blueberry muffins that increased your stats when eaten.
You know if they dropped the price on DAOC I would go back to it and so would many others. I think thats the problem the rush from warfailure would be like a hurricane hehe so they won't do it.
I'll add one, Haven and Hearth, a 2 man developed indy mmo. Alpha stage but not too many bugs and the gameplay is so, unique, that it's instantly took me away from my Ragnarok and Atlantica addiction for days since I found it. Complicated, intense crafting and settlement game, very nice and a very relaxing and unique change of pace.
LOL, So I went to Haven and Hearth website and looked at the screenies...OMG, this game looks like it was developed in 1993. You gotta be kidding me.
I'll add one, Haven and Hearth, a 2 man developed indy mmo. Alpha stage but not too many bugs and the gameplay is so, unique, that it's instantly took me away from my Ragnarok and Atlantica addiction for days since I found it. Complicated, intense crafting and settlement game, very nice and a very relaxing and unique change of pace.
LOL, So I went to Haven and Hearth website and looked at the screenies...OMG, this game looks like it was developed in 1993. You gotta be kidding me.
LOL! I finally got into the FFXI trial & lo & behold! VGA-style graphics & that's being generous!!!
THE worst consolitis craptacular keyboard driven menu interface I have EVER had the displeasure to waste my time on...EVA!!!
Don't even get me started on mouse control - that is even more borked. I honestly think EOB1/2 has a better early mouse driven interface... I...kid....you...not. Or that eardrum-destroying/brain-numbing PlayOnline music - ARRRGGGHHHHHhhhh!!!!@##$%$%%^*
Stuffed if I could find a menu or system option of any sort to change any of this rubbish.
How does this utter Jap-crap uber-turd keep 50-70K subs is a complete & utter mystery to me. I would rather play an Infocom text adventure any day of the week lol! Game over.
Is it even worth trying Ragnarok guys? :-/
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's true, even for a blind man. ^DareDevil^
The game that has surprised me the most has been Runes of Magic. I know it's a F2P game, but it's by far the best I've ever tried. It makes me think that this is what WoW would have been like if Blizzard had made it a F2P game.
I'm really surprised that it's so unpopular. With a larger community, it would be amazing.
Both Ryzom and DAoC might be worth playing with an extensive, and I mean a complete overhaul, of their graphics. As far as I can tell these games had terrible graphics on release day. That's probably why they are "under the radar" in the first place. Who wants to play a game that has screenshots that look like junk?
Nah they all suck and arn't played anymore for a reason.
Not played? you do realize that Runescape and maple story have millions of players right?
---------- "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
"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.
I 100% agree with you on FFXi being one of the most unsung heroes of mmorpg's. I played it for 2 years and sometimes regret leaving it for (eeecchhhhh) wow. But looking back I enjoyed myself a lot. The leveling gets a bit grindy at parts and some of the higher level questlines are completely Linkshell dependent. I was looking at the latest release of the ultimate collection, but between life and other games in full swing I simply don't have the time to invest. FFXi requires dedication to progress.
Well i must say a fact here graphics is afactor i dotn think so look at WoW those gaem graphs suck and alot of lambs play it, gameplay nahh cause they have a different gameplay dosent mean they are bad and wath other o yes originality at least maple story is original not like that other 11 million lamb game that copied paste everithing from games before. Lest just say you found those runescape game guys on the school cause gamers and new players arent poisoned by the "pro gamers" of mmo so they can still appreciate a game for wath is meant to be for FUN not cause its famous
Comments
Well thats' a blatant BS lie, I've used nVidia since forever, and put close to 4 solid years of subscription into FFXI and never once had an issue!
In a very Darwinistic sense, I guess that is the case.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
In my opinion an MMO that was totally forgotten, since I have never seen an article about it here, is Ragnarok Online. It still has a lot of players, especially jRO which have 45,000~70,000 online players at any time. What is more, there are currently many different things going on, Ragnarok Renewal update (totally changed mechanics so they can fit in the current MMO's reality) or implementation of 3rd jobs (Ranger, Warlock, Sorcerer, Royal Guard, Arch Bishop. etc.). And surely, we can't forget about recently added instances or new world called Jutenheim. Many, many things have changed in RO so maybe it's a good idea to look into them and write some articles, this game is really good, especially when you compare it to those new MMOs that are coming out. They aren't as unique as RO and they neither have such a wide content nor great features. If anybody here is interested in new things in RO, you should visit kRO (www.ragnarok.co.kr) or iROwiki (http://forums.irowiki.org/).
I'll add one, Haven and Hearth, a 2 man developed indy mmo. Alpha stage but not too many bugs and the gameplay is so, unique, that it's instantly took me away from my Ragnarok and Atlantica addiction for days since I found it. Complicated, intense crafting and settlement game, very nice and a very relaxing and unique change of pace.
FF11 ?!?!!
you must be kidding!
this is worlds most crappy mmorpg.
must be masochistic to waste your life with this game...
Maple Story needs freaking joystick/gamepad support. I have to used a third party emulator to make it work with my SFIV madcatz gamepad. It's a great little game though and once you're well lazied up in your couch or bed with a glass of wine and just hacking and slashing away, it's a pretty fun game :P
I disagree with the authors opinion that DAOC has been overlooked.
When it was in beta it was eagerly anticipated by the large majority of people still playing Everquest. I recall a great many positive messages on the EQ forums I visited daily from people going on and on about DAOC and all the things it offered that EQ didn't. When DAOC came out it prompted EQ to change the way they showed the populations of their servers. They no longer showed the actual numbers because subscriptions were falling from everyone going to DAOC.
I played DAOC for around 3 years from its release. The game was very fun but in my opinion the meddling and mismanagement by Mythic lead to the games slow demise. The way they reacted to issues turned a great many people off. The worst of which and its a problem that still affects them in Warhammer;
1. Populating Imbalance
Mythic would try to alleviate this by offering free /level 20 & 30 characters to anyone that had a 50th on underpopulated realms. The underpopulated realms also received levelling bonuses to exp and drop rates. This never worked. It just made the lower level bg's packed with twinks but the people mostly didn't bother to level up and stay with the server. They would later drop this entirely.
also,
When the game is based on pvp and one side makes up 50% or more of the population allowing them to raid your frontier daily with 300-500 people while you can barely get 20 people to fight back it makes pvp non too enticing.
2. Constant Nerfs
Mythics method of balancing was to nerf one class into oblivion while making its counterparts better. This made people either quit the game entirely (myself included) or they just quit playing that particular class and joined whichever realm currently was winning with a FOTM class.
Secondly, FFXI wasn't overlooked the game just plain sucks. Thats why people don't play it.
Why does it suck ? Allow me to elaborate;
1. You obtain a fancy suit of armor at level 10 that looks the same as the fancy suit of armor with much better stats that you get at 20th. Everyone looks the same. In MMO's where most people strive to look unique everyone is a carbon copy of the other.
2. The economy was ruined from the get go. It was out for a year in japan before coming to North America. New players enter a game where the farmers have perma camped newb zones so they can put newb items at ridiculous prices. In some cases a level 4 item was listed at 10 x the amount as level 50 items that were considerably better.
3. Trying to play with people who didn't speak the language can prove to be quite tedious, and in some cases when the japanese players knew you weren't japanese they automatically excluded you.
4. The graphics looked like playstation era quality and the game content required that you follow a storyline to progress. As for progression levelling was extremely slow and you couldn't solo post 30th, well you could but it was even worse, and since you almost required a group to progress see point 3.
Whoah wait. Horizons is still around? I thought that collapsed after they closed up Horizons and then some scam company had taken over and started ripping people off and then closed up again.
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
EAT ME MMORPG.com!
Kordesh not only still alive but thriving under new ownership and lots of current new content and a huge client upgrade. If its a game you once liked I'd give it another look, its not quite the same game that launched but its still a great time. Have redone the whole strter setup and testing to release T2 revamp, could be worth checking out.
Guess I should add its called Istaria Chronicles of the Gifted now not Horizons anymore.
Sorry Khrymson but why should I lie, I wanted to play FF and was very disappointed? Maybe the cause of the dreadful lag I got In FF was not what I thought but they do only have servers out east and the Nvida card issue is well known. I did a google on this after it happened to me. I have a very up to date rig btw and a 8meg broadband connection.
You may not have any problems but that does not mean no one else has.
DAoC died because Mythic started ignoring thier customers and introducing patches that made huge changes in gameplay.
Like needing way more players to play the game and complete objectives than were available.
If you got to play DAoC before Shrouded Isles you would know what I mean. Even the classic servers don't touch on what DAoC was originally like.
No EQ?
Anyway, I don't see how some of the games on the list are there.
Is maple story supposed to be good or something? I've played it before, it's one of the worst games ever made. It's one of those games for kids I think, because the amount of grinding in that game is insane. It's not even the fact that theres a grind, but the fact that the grind is so trivial. I mean, you just run up to random NPCs and mash your attack button, and there is little variability in NPC combat.
It's an interesting MMORPG, but it's a horrible korean grinder.
Not to mention there is no immersion factor in a 2D game like Maple Story. It's too cartoony for you to feel it is real.
I guess those are the main reasons Maple Story shouldn't be listed as a good MMORPG.
outdated graphics....
hmm well yes that is true but the thing is:
many people dream of WOW being very detailed and having a douzen other things to see than quests and such.
it is true i think though i played WOW for a test for about 2 days and i couldnt really fit myself into that world.
i am not blaming WOW for being a bad game it is just that i don't really feel interest into that sort of gameworld.
okay that seems very offtopic so lets head back to the point:
i sadly agree with the list for the fact that FFXI gets not that much attention, but we don't need this i think.
in some ways i think it is very nice to play this game cause it is a little "treasure" for people who have a lot of time.
and spoken of the graphics: well
see attached picture i think that game doesnt look bad at all.
and for the world i think you should check out youtube and search for:
FF11 Scenery there are two videos that show the relaxing site of Vana'diel
the link below is for the screenshot. still gotta figure this kind of forums out.
oh and for the blurring of the names: i just don't want disrespect any other player.
I'm not reading through all the comments, so I'm sorry if this has already been mentioned...
You have a little bit of false info in there...Runescape - "...option for full loot pvp..." sorry but that is just not the case anymore. Dec 10, 2007 Jagex decided to remove the wilderness and free trades due to RWT problems, and in doing so got rid of the "option for full loot pvp". You can no longer loot everything that your victim was carrying (or everything but 1, 3 or 4 items). And it's rare that you get anything good from pking, during the days of the wilderness I had always made profit from going pking(even if I died, I would make back the money I lost + some later that day). However, BH craters/pvp worlds/BH worlds/etc., I have lost probably 15M-20M just in supplies, and another 20M+ in gear (mainly from getting picked off by ppl 10 lvls above me in pvp worlds ~stupid barrage + d claws..all that most ppl know how to use now adays~). But the point is, the reward for the majority of the PK's are things that mostly everyone leaves on the ground, such as low level armor/weapons/food. So your not getting tons of rune armor/weps, super pots, sharks etc. (those items made pvp profitable, pking items like dfs' and godswords were just great days).
FFXI...after reading comment here I thought I'd try the free trial.
PlayOnline. O...M...F...G...!!! What a complete disaster of a registration system/front end ROFLMFAO! I mean, really guys??? I've not felt a disturbance in the online mmo Force like this since...NEVER! *boggle*
Anyway, get past the craptacular console craziness...several extra downloads & restarts later...FFXI is finally about to start!...?
21438 (!!!) files to download to get the trial clent up to date. After 10 mins on my fairly fast dsl only 100 or so files d/led. I mean, WTF? ... WTF? .... WTFFFFFFFF??????
Do these marketing morons who pull this kinda shit just do it to piss potential customers off?
""Hey ya know what'd be real funny man? Let's make prospective paying customers download 2-2.5GB of client files...then let's jerk them around with the most unintuitive, convoluted online rego system we can devise & just when they think they're finally about to play the game...make them d/l another 2GB+ of files to get the client up to date!"
Do the total idiots who set up these trials stop to think for just 1 second that maybe, just maybe, this is costing them potential customers?
Why TF do they not keep their trial clients up to date FFS!!!??? (or at least in the same year as the release version!)
<utterly, totally bewildered & disgusted>
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's true, even for a blind man. ^DareDevil^
Honestly, these games aren;t under the radar. There's no interest in this story, I bet. I clicked to see what I was missing only to be whacked with dated products that we've played and moved on from for a reason.
Ashen Empires.
This is a game under the radar. Best skill system ever. I dont recall ever seeing a game with such a diverse set of tradeskills. (Lumberjacking, Carpentry, foraging, planting, harvesting, baking, mixing, weaving, skinning, leatherworking, mining, smithing,... etc.)
Grab a blueberry seed, plant the seed, cast nurish to help it grow faster and more plentiful, take your harvest of blueberries and bake them into blueberry muffins that increased your stats when eaten.
You know if they dropped the price on DAOC I would go back to it and so would many others. I think thats the problem the rush from warfailure would be like a hurricane hehe so they won't do it.
LOL, So I went to Haven and Hearth website and looked at the screenies...OMG, this game looks like it was developed in 1993. You gotta be kidding me.
LOL, So I went to Haven and Hearth website and looked at the screenies...OMG, this game looks like it was developed in 1993. You gotta be kidding me.
LOL! I finally got into the FFXI trial & lo & behold! VGA-style graphics & that's being generous!!!
THE worst consolitis craptacular keyboard driven menu interface I have EVER had the displeasure to waste my time on...EVA!!!
Don't even get me started on mouse control - that is even more borked. I honestly think EOB1/2 has a better early mouse driven interface... I...kid....you...not. Or that eardrum-destroying/brain-numbing PlayOnline music - ARRRGGGHHHHHhhhh!!!!@##$%$%%^*
Stuffed if I could find a menu or system option of any sort to change any of this rubbish.
How does this utter Jap-crap uber-turd keep 50-70K subs is a complete & utter mystery to me. I would rather play an Infocom text adventure any day of the week lol! Game over.
Is it even worth trying Ragnarok guys? :-/
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's true, even for a blind man. ^DareDevil^
The game that has surprised me the most has been Runes of Magic. I know it's a F2P game, but it's by far the best I've ever tried. It makes me think that this is what WoW would have been like if Blizzard had made it a F2P game.
I'm really surprised that it's so unpopular. With a larger community, it would be amazing.
Both Ryzom and DAoC might be worth playing with an extensive, and I mean a complete overhaul, of their graphics. As far as I can tell these games had terrible graphics on release day. That's probably why they are "under the radar" in the first place. Who wants to play a game that has screenshots that look like junk?
Not played? you do realize that Runescape and maple story have millions of players right?
----------
"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
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"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 100% agree with you on FFXi being one of the most unsung heroes of mmorpg's. I played it for 2 years and sometimes regret leaving it for (eeecchhhhh) wow. But looking back I enjoyed myself a lot. The leveling gets a bit grindy at parts and some of the higher level questlines are completely Linkshell dependent. I was looking at the latest release of the ultimate collection, but between life and other games in full swing I simply don't have the time to invest. FFXi requires dedication to progress.
Well i must say a fact here graphics is afactor i dotn think so look at WoW those gaem graphs suck and alot of lambs play it, gameplay nahh cause they have a different gameplay dosent mean they are bad and wath other o yes originality at least maple story is original not like that other 11 million lamb game that copied paste everithing from games before. Lest just say you found those runescape game guys on the school cause gamers and new players arent poisoned by the "pro gamers" of mmo so they can still appreciate a game for wath is meant to be for FUN not cause its famous
DARK AND LIGHT I GOVERN BOTH