What MMO's are thriving besides WoW?

Introspectre

i've given a lot of MMO's a chance over the years (UO, EQ1, EQ2, AO, Lineage2, DAOC, FFXI, LOTRO, Warhammer Online), but the only one that seems to keep me going back to the well is WoW, which i've played pretty consistantly for 6 years now. I had the misfortune of buying into the hype of Warhammer Online and picking it up it at launch only to be severely disappointed.. and haven't bought any new games since then except the Cataclysm expansion. I swore i'd just stick to WoW for the rest of my gaming days after getting burned like that.. but you know how it goes, time passes and you get that itch to try something new again.

Problem is, it seems WoW is like Walmart and every other MMO is a mom and pop store on the side of the road, if that makes sense. WoW has maintained and grown its population over the years, while every other MMO gets a bunch of people playing it at launch, the majority quit a few months later and populations dwindle down to only the most diehard fans. These small population MMOs are unappealing to a new player because there's nobody playing alts doing the lower level content and it's  too steep a grind to catch up to the veteran community.

I don't really know what to do, WoW bores me now to the point where I even started new characters on the opposing faction, but it didn't help, so I either need to play something else or just step away from MMO's for a while. Any suggestions of a game that's thriving? That's really the #1 thing of importance for me.. I hate trying a game and liking it, only to find out there's only a couple thousand people playing it total.

jpnz

Originally posted by Introspectre

i've given a lot of MMO's a chance over the years (UO, EQ1, EQ2, AO, Lineage2, DAOC, FFXI, LOTRO, Warhammer Online), but the only one that seems to keep me going back to the well is WoW, which i've played pretty consistantly for 6 years now. I had the misfortune of buying into the hype of Warhammer Online and picking it up it at launch only to be severely disappointed.. and haven't bought any new games since then except the Cataclysm expansion. I swore i'd just stick to WoW for the rest of my gaming days after getting burned like that.. but you know how it goes, time passes and you get that itch to try something new again.

Problem is, it seems WoW is like Walmart and every other MMO is a mom and pop store on the side of the road, if that makes sense. WoW has maintained and grown its population over the years, while every other MMO gets a bunch of people playing it at launch, the majority quit a few months later and populations dwindle down to only the most diehard fans. These small population MMOs are unappealing to a new player because there's nobody playing alts doing the lower level content and it's  too steep a grind to catch up to the veteran community.

I don't really know what to do, WoW bores me now to the point where I even started new characters on the opposing faction, but it didn't help, so I either need to play something else or just step away from MMO's for a while. Any suggestions of a game that's thriving? That's really the #1 thing of importance for me.. I hate trying a game and liking it, only to find out there's only a couple thousand people playing it total.

What do you mean 'thriving'?

WoW's sub hasn't been 'growing' if that's you are implying.  Whether this is through burn-out or w/e.

 

If you are after lots of people to play with and has a gameplay similar to WoW there are lots to choose from.

Obvious one is Aion, second largest 'wow-clone' with 3.5M subs.

DDO/LOTRO has a fair number of players but they are F2P with MT.

Guild wars1 (sequel is due sometime 2012 i think) is pretty cheap and it is B2P.

Rift is something more recent WoW-Clone with a high amount of polish.

 

Steam summer sale on right now has GW1 and all its expansions (except EttN) for 20bux or something.

Wicoa

WoW is like plain chocolate it will do for now and it does for most people but to get what you really like you have to search.  Keep an eye on swtor.

Celcius

Originally posted by Introspectre

i've given a lot of MMO's a chance over the years (UO, EQ1, EQ2, AO, Lineage2, DAOC, FFXI, LOTRO, Warhammer Online), but the only one that seems to keep me going back to the well is WoW, which i've played pretty consistantly for 6 years now. I had the misfortune of buying into the hype of Warhammer Online and picking it up it at launch only to be severely disappointed.. and haven't bought any new games since then except the Cataclysm expansion. I swore i'd just stick to WoW for the rest of my gaming days after getting burned like that.. but you know how it goes, time passes and you get that itch to try something new again.

Problem is, it seems WoW is like Walmart and every other MMO is a mom and pop store on the side of the road, if that makes sense. WoW has maintained and grown its population over the years, while every other MMO gets a bunch of people playing it at launch, the majority quit a few months later and populations dwindle down to only the most diehard fans. These small population MMOs are unappealing to a new player because there's nobody playing alts doing the lower level content and it's  too steep a grind to catch up to the veteran community.

I don't really know what to do, WoW bores me now to the point where I even started new characters on the opposing faction, but it didn't help, so I either need to play something else or just step away from MMO's for a while. Any suggestions of a game that's thriving? That's really the #1 thing of importance for me.. I hate trying a game and liking it, only to find out there's only a couple thousand people playing it total.

I loved your Walmart and mom & pop store analogy =p  That is a pretty good representation of the current state of MMOs for certain. 

Excluding what you mentioned Rift is thriving pretty well and even has ques on some servers. They recently enabled server transfers which allowed the servers that were low population to transfer off if they wanted to,ect. Rift kinda suffered from launching the game with way too many servers and low population caps initially. Both have been changed so the game is pretty full of life right now and there are pretty significant content patches each month. 

Another one you may want to look at is AOC. They just started F2P today and it may be a good reboot of the game. It has suffered in numbers before but if they share a similar success to LOTRO's F2P model you might see the game actually thrive going forward.

Aion is another game that has been thriving pretty well. They just launched a graphic update and a free trial which probably brought some new blood into the fray. The game only has a couple of servers but they are packed with players. 

Eve is another game that is thriving pretty strongly, but it might not be the style of game you are looking for. Big universe with tons of players.

Hope this helps you find what you were looking for. There is a good chance you won't want to play any of these games, but these are probably some of the ones worth mentioning. I am sure someone can add to this.

ormstunga

Rift and Lotro are your best bets I think. Similar gameplay to WoW. You dont really need 10mil ppl to enjoy a game surely? Each server can only host so many ppl. I havent played Rift for a couple of months but I think you'll find that a Lotro server has as many ppl online as any WoW server.

I personally enjoyed my time in WoW, altho the last couple of years I played more because of my guild of RL buds than the game itself. Soon as they quit I moved on and tried both Rift and Lotro. Having played WoW for so many years they didnt really feel different enough to be "awesome" but had I tried them prior to WoW I think they would have felt like awesome solid pve games.

NeVeRLiFt

Keep an eye on ArcheAge and Guildwars 2 as they will be the mmo's that bring the most to the table and in the end have people playing in a great online world and not just chasing a carrot on a stick with a online game feeling like ToR seems to have already.

 

As for current mmo's out I recommend LotRO, EQ2, AoC.

Introspectre

Originally posted by ormstunga

Rift and Lotro are your best bets I think. Similar gameplay to WoW. You dont really need 10mil ppl to enjoy a game surely? Each server can only host so many ppl. I havent played Rift for a couple of months but I think you'll find that a Lotro server has as many ppl online as any WoW server.

I personally enjoyed my time in WoW, altho the last couple of years I played more because of my guild of RL buds than the game itself. Soon as they quit I moved on and tried both Rift and Lotro. Having played WoW for so many years they didnt really feel different enough to be "awesome" but had I tried them prior to WoW I think they would have felt like awesome solid pve games.

True enough that I don't need a 10 million player base to enjoy a game.. I guess it's about having a safety net. Because of its massive player base, I know that WoW isn't going anywhere so even though i'm sick to death of it now, I know i'll be able to come back at any point in the future and pick up where I left off. Can't say the same for other games.. i'd feel bad investing time in a game if its population is low enough that it could potentially get shut down or dwindle down to where it's not fun to play anymore.

I should also add that i'm not ruling out games i've played in the past.. its just that it seems most of them are in what i'd consider a vegetative state, where they're dead for all intents and purposes & will never grow or add new content, but the company just doesn't have the heart to pull the plug on them for the sake of the few hundred or 1,000 people left playing.

Vrika

Lotro, AoC, Rift, EVE and Wizard 101 have all large enough populations. Dofus has also good population, but majority of them speak french. City of Heroes is going F2P and it has maintained decent population and updates for years. There are other games there besides WoW.

WoW just has about as much population as the next 5 largest MMOs combined.

Fehd

I tried WoW but I didn't like it , the graphic seems a bit cartoonish for my taste beside it is p2p game which imo no longer can compete with other MMO's that changed to f2p like LOTR and POTBS .. etc .

 

I believe most people now are trying several games while waiting for GW2 , ArchAge and SWTOR .

snoocky

@OP,

I was in the same situation, till I tried Gods and Heroes, it's like a fresh wind through dusty mmorpg land...

I'm having a blast!

Celcius

Originally posted by Robokapp

let me ask a similar but perhaps different question: which mmo is released and has a growing population?

 

I know Eve until...recently...was pretty much the only growing mmo or at least recently-growing. Not counting games less than 6 months old of course since they have yet to prove their stability. so anything from 1996-2010 growing presently or recently?

Rift is growing, not sure if it is at a substantial rate or not though. Can't really think of anything else, most of the MMOs released in the past few years have lost tons of players. I think AOC will get a jolt of energy with the new F2P model, but i doubt it will grow after an initial jump in population especially with big games on the horizon.

Vunak23

Depends on what you mean by thriving. If your talking subscriptions then Aion, and Lineage 2 are by far dominating that scene. If your talking about the western audience only then its WoW and Rift.

Cik_Asalin

Originally posted by Introspectre

What MMO's are thriving besides WoW?

- Darkfall

- Mortal Online

- Earthrise

- EVE