Seeing what is out there that might fit my preferred playstyle.

brandonbvisi

I'm looking for a new MMO.  Just to give you a background.

 

Since 2007, I've tried and all of these have failed to capture my attention (at all):

 

1) World of Warcraft

2) Rift

3) Age of Conan

4) EQ2

 

I've played these, and found them to capture some interest, so I'm thinking these have more gameplay elements I'm looking for.

 

1) Aion

2) Asheron's Call

3) EQ1

4) Vanguard

5) Darkfall

 

Now when I reflect, I believe the things that interested me in these games was a solid risk vs reward type gameplay.  The more you were willing to risk, the more you gained in benefits.  If you took the easy road, you receieved literally nothing. 

 

Aion was bad, but is an exception because of the forced world PVP, and the fact you could get PVP missions with great loot for doing so.  I had a blast teleporting into other peoples lands, trying to accomplish tasks while trying not to be hunted down, and ended up having some major pvp excitement.  I literally remember my heart beating faster/harder in my chest while doing the PVP quests.  Adrenaline.  Otherwise Aion sucked if you played it PVE or "easy" mode.

 

Asheron's Call actually captured my interest quite well, but the interface, old graphics, and stupid/simple mob AI didn't make it very deep, but all in all, this was probably on the top of my list.  Dying in a dungeon and losing your items, having to go back and try to get it really made things difficult and risky.  Not to mention the gameplay and scope seemed large by comparison. 

 

EQ1 on the progression server was decent until Kunark came out.  I also didn't like the very anti social competitive nature of the server.  Everybody was literally an asshole, fighting over noob gear, and the bots started to get to me after I started to notice them.  I quit shortly after Kunark released.    However, I liked the huge scope of some of the dungeons.  I played EQ1 for years (over the years since it was released) and I still have trouble navigating around Lower Guk dungeon... I have no clue where fire giants are in Solusek B, as I get lost (and usually die) running around the dungeon.  There is good immersion generally in EQ1.

 

Vanguard was similar to EQ1 in my feelings.

 

Darkfall seemed pretty decent, only did the limited few day trail, so I didn't really get a good feel for the game.  It seemed promising and I've actually wanted to go back and try it out for real.  But I hear they might be doing a wipe and restarting with a 2.0, so I've been hesitating. 

 

I fully believe the most important factor to MMO gaming is like I mentioned with Aion.  The elevated heart rate, and immersion into your character that gets you excited.  A connection, and I believe the only way to get that is to have risk and a penalty for failure, with added bonus for succeeding.  Most of the modern games I've tried do not capture that.  It's easy mode quest hub after quest hub upgrades of armor/gear at every hub... Never any fear of losing a corpse or gear, never any fear of losing any experience/progress, never any fear of players, and honestly, most modern games don't even require you to read your chat text as you don't even need to talk to anybody, or group.  There is no elevated heart rate because nothing mattered.

 

My "perfect" mmo would be probably an equal mix of EQ1 (original) (or Vanguard) and Asheron's Call.   If there is a hybrid out there anywhere? Or something suitable? Maybe something in the future?  

 

I mentioned Darkfall, and when I did play that, it did almost remind me of a mix between original EQ1 and AC1 in style, and added the pvp from Aion, but I didn't get far enough along to really solidify my opinion, and I didn't find any dungeons. I'm thinking this might be the best bet. 

 

Any opinions/comments?

 

77lolmac77

Sounds like exactly what I want from an MMO. I played Darkfall for about 2 months on NA-1 and it was fun but had a lot of problems as well. You could gain levels by going afk (people swimming against a pole, bloodwall, running into a wall) and magic spells required reagents to cast. Now I don't have a problem with that but with an FPS perspective I didn't like that I was wasting money because my spells would miss someone because of something out of my control (lag, weird splash areas, etc). 

Couple that with how Alliances would take over entire islands (maybe different now, when I played the entire NE island was ran by one alliance) and you get a pretty unfriendly atmosphere to new players that defintely stunted the games growth (in addition to the zero advertising the game has).

The only game I can think of (not that I know every mmo out) that might interest you is EVE online. But I didn't like the whole click to move gameplay I prefer WASD. But that game is easily the biggest sandbox out right now.

Rollerrat

Originally posted by brandonbvisi

Now when I reflect, I believe the things that interested me in these games was a solid risk vs reward type gameplay.  The more you were willing to risk, the more you gained in benefits.  If you took the easy road, you receieved literally nothing. 

 

Maybe you should check EVE Online?

Sid_Vicious

Originally posted by brandonbvisi

Darkfall seemed pretty decent, only did the limited few day trail, so I didn't really get a good feel for the game.  It seemed promising and I've actually wanted to go back and try it out for real.  But I hear they might be doing a wipe and restarting with a 2.0, so I've been hesitating. 

 

I fully believe the most important factor to MMO gaming is like I mentioned with Aion.  The elevated heart rate, and immersion into your character that gets you excited.  A connection, and I believe the only way to get that is to have risk and a penalty for failure, with added bonus for succeeding.  Most of the modern games I've tried do not capture that.  It's easy mode quest hub after quest hub upgrades of armor/gear at every hub... Never any fear of losing a corpse or gear, never any fear of losing any experience/progress, never any fear of players, and honestly, most modern games don't even require you to read your chat text as you don't even need to talk to anybody, or group.  There is no elevated heart rate because nothing mattered.

 

My "perfect" mmo would be probably an equal mix of EQ1 (original) (or Vanguard) and Asheron's Call.   If there is a hybrid out there anywhere? Or something suitable? Maybe something in the future?  

 

I mentioned Darkfall, and when I did play that, it did almost remind me of a mix between original EQ1 and AC1 in style, and added the pvp from Aion, but I didn't get far enough along to really solidify my opinion, and I didn't find any dungeons. I'm thinking this might be the best bet. 

 

Any opinions/comments?

 

Darkfall looks like its going to be your best bet. Why did you stop playing it? There are lots of dungeons in the game and many have daily quests worth 2-4k each turn in which usually take 30-60 to complete. Some of the dungeons are really fun because they are non-stop action and I pretty much don't have time to keep up with all the spawns unless I have help from 2 other people. Doing it alone is very challenging and if you don't kill the monsters fast they start to level up and become much stronger. One time I was fighting a bunch of mobs when I was jumped by a group of people and while we fought the mobs killed all of us. While bleeding out I saw a second party come in that died trying to loot! LOL it was hilarious. I went back immediately because of all the gear as I was bound very close-by but the monsters were too hard for me to loot anything on my own. Others came back too and again we all died! LOL so I think there was almost a dozen tombstones near the end that I didn't go back to a third time since I didn't have help.

 

Darkfall, EVE, and Mortal Online are currently the only games that can provide a rush it seems like but I think that Darkfall pumps adrenaline the most because of how fast-paced the combat is where every action can count and you can have every key on your keyboard do something important. I think that after 2.0 the rush probably won't be as extreme because it sounds like they will be having more limits to how many spells someone can use so there will be less buttons to press. This is why I think that the game is worth playing now and I am sure that you would have enough time to build a developed toon before 2.0 is ready. I've played the game almost 3 years now I think? Anyways, it still jumps my heart at times and I still have not explored much of the world and havent even been in all the dungeons.