LF MMO with a sense of adventure and exploration

Greyd

Maybe I'm asking for too much here, but I'd like to play an MMO with a focus on exploring the world, one that has a real sense of adventure, mystery, and danger. I want to venture into the wilds with a small group in the hopes of finding treasure or a rare monster. I enjoy "theme park"-style MMOs, but I'm sick of mechanically running through quest chains and camping spawn points. The games that came closest to fulfilling this ideal for me were Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, but I've had my fill of the former, and the latter is nothing like it was during the first month I played it.

I've heard that Eve Online can fill this niche, but I've never gotten to the end of a free trial before getting bored, and I refuse to wait weeks/months to get the skills necessary to venture into a wormwhole and whatnot -- I plan to bring a couple of family members into the game with me, and we want to hit the ground running.

Any suggestions? (A plus for any game with housing, or a ship, etc. -- there's something really enjoyable about having a safe haven in a hostile world.)

RavZterz

Istaria, altho the graphics might hold you back.  They don't quite have hidden treasure but plenty of things to see while exploring

kaiser3282

My 2 best suggestions are quite different in style and mechanics, but both fit most or all of your criteria:

Ryzom (sandbox) - very good & helpful community, great mob AI, pretty expansive world to explore with very unique areas, and a skill system that allows you to create your own skills using portions of skills called Stanzas. Basically the Stanzas are made up of things like effects, power, field/area of effect, duration, cost  to cast. This doesnt apply to just combat skills either, you create your own skills for crafting and gathering as well.

Lord of the Rings Online (themepark)  - one of the better themeparks out right now IMO with a huge & beautiful world to explore, especiallyif youve got a machine that can run it on highest settings. Great storytelling throughout the game, a pretty good sense/feeling of exploration & wonder, and the classes mesh together very well for group play, but many are also good for soloing.

spikers14

I'm with ya on that one OP. Generally, I find those elements more prevalent in SRPG's.

Reeper

Im with ya on the Adventure, the games flowing out are Same ole, Same Ole,

 

 

   Let me and my Party get lost, have a chance after playing for year to find something no one els has,  a new dungeon, Mobs, Items (treasure). Create a WORLD some  huge and Vast (not Baren), dont give the players a island and call it world.

     Other games come out, its a line out the door for people to run through the same places (themepark line), 5 new dungeons in a Expansion, than is done and redone 500 times over in the first weak.

Remember EQ in the West Comons?, a Hill giant would Spawn in a low lvl area, runnen around  squashing,everyone  yelling for a high lvl  (lvl 25) to come save you?, that was a game where you EARNED your lvl, you EARNED your gear, it was a new play style it was adventure looking back, but now it seems small.

Khors

Istaria, Ryzom, LotRO;is that the best we can do. Comon....3 dated, population shallow, lingering to dear life mmo's? Sorry, but not only are those not good choices imho, Im suffering from a mmorpg fix myself, and am afraid I'll have to wait a bit longer.

kaiser3282

Originally posted by Khors

Istaria, Ryzom, LotRO;is that the best we can do. Comon....3 dated, population shallow, lingering to dear life mmo's? Sorry, but not only are those not good choices imho, Im suffering from a mmorpg fix myself, and am afraid I'll have to wait a bit longer.

 Well, for now they're about the best choices along the lines of what he's looking for. There's better coming out in the next year or so, but nothing he can play yet. Unfortunately we're stuck with a vast selection of pretty craptastic games right now, and the few that are actually pretty good tend to have a low pop due to things like a bad launch and never recovering from it.

cukimunga

Well there is this not so well known game in the works called Dawntide..  Ive been testing it for the past week an Ive enjoyed my testing so far. They are opening up the beta so everyone can test it but its not really what most companies would call an Open Beta. The game probably won't release for a while they just wanted to get a bunch of people to play so they can test out social features of the game amung other things as well.

But check this out, it will give you a pretty good idea of what the game is all about. http://www.dawntide.net/gameplay

PhelimReagh

In theory, Vanguard (low population) has a lot of what you're looking for. No PvP, though, not sure if that's what you're looking for, though.

 

I tried it recently, and there seem to be a decent number of new folks showing interest in it, but it requires pretty good specs on your computer to run.

quddusali

Have u tried Wurm?

Greyd

Thanks for all the suggestions. It looks like Istaria, LotRo, Ryzom, Vanguard, and Wurm all have trials or F2P options, so I'll probably give each one a go. Hopefully one of them will have enough appeal for both me and the relatives I plan to play with.

I'll keep an eye on Dawntide, too -- I really like its list of features. I've been burned too much to get hyped though, so I'll just hope it turns out well and try it on release.

 

 

 

jonrd463

Originally posted by Greyd

Thanks for all the suggestions. It looks like Istaria, LotRo, Ryzom, Vanguard, and Wurm all have trials or F2P options, so I'll probably give each one a go. Hopefully one of them will have enough appeal for both me and the relatives I plan to play with.

I'll keep an eye on Dawntide, too -- I really like its list of features. I've been burned too much to get hyped though, so I'll just hope it turns out well and try it on release.

If and when you try out Vanguard, look up the After Hours guild. It's made up of mmorpg.com forum members and was created to try to build up interest in the game and for new players to have a chance to group up in the early levels. The biggest problem with VG up til now was that the population, small as it is, was too top heavy. Now there are about 250 characters in the guild. Accounting for alts, it's about 180 or so individual people. Not too shabby for only being a couple of weeks old.

 

Pull up Vanguard in the Game List here and check out the General Discussion forum. The top stickied thread is about the guild. Lots of information is also in the more recent threads there. I just joined myself the other night, so I can't really speak on behalf of the guild, but if I had to guess, I'd say we'd be more than happy to add you.

Death1942

i felt exactly what you seek with Vanguard.

 

The world is freaken huge and how the world is designed really promotes exploring off the beaten track.

 

an example is on a beach i can see some giant temple in the side of a mountain miles away, you can actually go into that temple and fight whatever is in there.  It's great fun

 

Also it has housing and ships

Sid_Vicious

Originally posted by Greyd

Thanks for all the suggestions. It looks like Istaria, LotRo, Ryzom, Vanguard, and Wurm all have trials or F2P options, so I'll probably give each one a go. Hopefully one of them will have enough appeal for both me and the relatives I plan to play with.

I'll keep an eye on Dawntide, too -- I really like its list of features. I've been burned too much to get hyped though, so I'll just hope it turns out well and try it on release.

 

 

 

Vanguard is a great game (probably the funnest quests out there imo) but doesnt have PVP. My favorite game fits your description and the PVP is great . .. it is called Darkfall (trial coming out in a week or two). Darkfall is a sandbox game that can get your heart pounding like no other game out there . ... FFA PVP full-loot but mostly PVE in a huge no-instanced open world. Cities/hamlets can be built and designed to a degree by clans so are player made and can be conquored by other clans. Extremely fun controls but really hard to get used to at first.

Greyd

I've given the Vanguard trial a try over the past few days. I've only played two or three hours, but the world does have a better sense of mystery than other MMOs -- I got bored with an early "kill 5 crocodiles" quest and just stomped off into the wilderness, and it was pretty fun to see what was over and around each bend (even if the higher level mobs did force me back).

I should play the game more, but my brothers weren't impressed by it. Really picky.

Thanks for the heads-up about After Hours. I doubt I'll dive into the game alone, but if I do I'll look you up.