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[Column] General: The Other Top 5 Hardcore MMORPGs
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
There are lots of awesome MMOs out there. So many in fact, that in my previous list about the best hardcore MMORPGs, I felt like I wasn’t quite able to list them all. Sure, I stand by the 5 that I picked to grace that first list and they are undoubtedly the best, but what about the other games?
Read more of David Jagneaux's The List: The Other Top 5 Hardcore MMORPGs.
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I like this list. Having AC and Shadowbane on there is completely needed IMO. I played both of those games, for awhile, and had a blast doing it. They definitely deserve a mention, especially with how great they are.
I hope the Shadowbane EMU server keeps going well.
Shadowbane was a hit? Who knew?!
Let's hear it for Meridian 59! Still one of, if not the best MMO I ever played! There's a reason it's still running, even if it is for free/donations :-p.
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Shadowbane is still around if you look for it *wink*wink*. I am always glad to see it listed, as it was the single most intense mmo I've ever played. Not to mention a year into the game I was still thinking of new builds and templates to create. I created a character leveled it to max, and deleted it at times before spending a single point or even fighting with it. I LOVE a game where you can screw up a character. Where there is incentive to reroll because you learned something from your previous attempt. I loved the consequences of Shadowbane. The dev's left balance to the players. You could roll a character that could kill 80% of the server 100% of the time. Yet someone else could roll a character that could beat you 100% of the time. Then that first player could create a counter. That was the life of shadowbane. FOTM's never really lasted and were hardly ever caused by dev's. Players imaginations countered OP templates. It was a masterpiece when it came to character creation and skill customization.
However one question...What Sequel?!? Not that chinese turd that was going to be called World Of Shadowbane. Please tell me David you're not talking about that lol.
Lineage 2 has changed a bit. They have added quests for the lower levels to boost you up a bit.
I remember when the game started, I played pretty hardcore (my first mmo) and it took a week to get to level 21.
Given how much xp a lower level character can get from these quests I wouldn't be surprised if you could hit 21 in less than a day. It is my understanding however that the high levels still take a long time.
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The MMO story has been one of a transition to easymode solo play. Unlike the previous article said it was not just a change of what we wanted, it was where the game designers led us. The solo play was brought in to attract solo game players to MMOs, to make them bigger selling games. Players in the days of DAOC were not all on the boards asking for more solo play.
I wonder if MMORPG.com might consider another top ten? 'The solo games with the biggest multiplayer element' top ten. While MMOs have gone solo, solo games have gone multiplayer. I get more grouping gameplay from Battlefield and Space Marines than I do from a MMO. Solo Multiplayer Online, 'SMO', that's what MMOs are today.
Your understanding would be correct. I played it a year or so back, and you can burn through the lower levels pretty quick, but once you get too far the familiar grind sets in.
Strange thing, the one thing that made the grind pretty difficult was the fact the level appropriate hunting spots were all massively overcamped, so it's more difficult to actually find enough NPC's to kill, than to actually kill them.
Oh yeah, about the list. Have to agree, adding SB was definitely a good idea, there were some ideas and features in that game still yet to be replicated that I really enjoyed. AC is the game I missed but sure wish I had played back in the day.
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Shadowbane and Asheron Call were classic hardcore and I think they did it right. There was gear progression but not a tier depending how you did your stats defined what the best armor was.
SB did not have the greatest of engines but the concept alone was great with the large amount of rune choices and having people have the ability to be a pure 100% support and be a large asset to your team.
AC was just great, exploring and finding random dungeons was the best.
I agree with every word you wrote! Same experience here.
Very cool list!
Of those listed this go around, I'd say I've had the most experience with Shadowbane, FFXI and Lineage 2. Though I played L2 and FFXI far more than Shadowbane. Shadowbane was one of my first MMOs and was a great primer for what would come with XI and L2 later.
I'll speak specifically on XI and L2.
For FFXI, it's interesting to see it described as a "hardcore MMO", because in the almost 8 years I played it, I never thought of it that way. I thought of it as a massive virtual world with many goals to set and tons of things to do. It seems to me that if your goal is to "get through content as fast as possible", then yes, you would need to make FFXI "a full-time job". But only if that's your goal. To me, XI never felt like a second job. It never even felt like a chore. I did what I wanted, for as long as I wanted. When I started getting weary of my current activity, I'd find something else to do.
Sometimes, I'd do next to nothing at all. I've spent plenty of time just sitting in Lower Jeuno (by the stairs, next to the AH) with other online friends, just hanging out chatting, joking around and enjoying the general shenanigans that would take place there on a regular basis. FFXI had an amazing community back then, with some truly awesome and often hysterical people (I'm talking CoP era in particular, before Aht Urghan released and Whitegate became the new Jeuno).
Point is, in MMOs, the way you approach them determines the experience you have. If you approach it like a "job", it will feel like one. If you approach it as a "grind", it will feel like a grind. If you treat it as a hobby, a fun pastime... that's what it will feel like. FFXI was certainly the latter to me. Great times, awesome memories.
I'd go back to those days in a heartbeat if I could. Sadly, that FFXI doesn't exist anymore. With Abyssea, SE pretty much gave up on keeping it as the deep, vast experience it was, and chose instead to try and shoe-horn "mainstream accessibility" and vertical progression into it. Ah well. At least I got to experience it when it was still a great game with a great community that wasn't all about "racing to level cap at the dismissal of all else".
Lineage 2 was my go-to PvP counterpart to FFXI. To this day, I've yet to see a MMO designed around PvP as well as Lineage 2 was. PvP was woven - in some way - into every aspect of the game. Even PvE content had some influence on PvP (and vice versa).
The thing is, as this article states, L2 is often dismissed as "nothing but a grind". To that, I can only say that while understand where that impression comes from - there's a lot of grinding, to be sure - I can not agree with it. L2 is far more than "just a grind". Grinding levels in L2 is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The heart of L2 is (or at least was) player-driven conflict, competition, politics... Once you got into that aspect of the game, got involved with the clan-wars, the alliances, the betrayals... all that went with it, that's when the true heart of L2 became clear. And anyway... even during xp grinding sessions (almost always done in a group with fellow clan/ally-mates), PvP could happen. You never knew who you'd run into, or who would run into you. That unpredictability made even something as "mundane" as leveling an exciting and often fun experience.
NCSoft blew it on RMT/Botting. Absolutely, no question. However, in terms of creating a game built entirely around player competition and cooperation.. they absolutely nailed it, in my opinion. And to reiterate, I've yet to see another MMO come close.
Sadly, NCSoft also jumped the shark by turning the game fully F2P and it's now nowhere near the game it used to be. Again, I'm glad I got to experience it when it was still awesome. I have tons of great (and not so-great) memories from my time in Aden as well.
Oh really? Classic Pre Trammel Ultima Online doesn't even warrant a mention?
I'm not sure how you define hardcore.... but UO had some of the most heart pounding moments that I'm confident at least one or two nerds have had heart-attacks.!
On Shadowbane, Changyou (the Chinese company that bought the Shadowbane name and source code in 2011) hasn't done anything with it. So you have a worst case scenario where a great IP has been locked up to rot like the Man in The Iron Mask.
I have often wondered how a "sure thing" like a Shadowbane 2 - the original concepts, tweaked some, with better graphics and game engine - doesn't get made. Same with a UO 2.
Instead we get a downward and apparently continuing slide into beautiful but lifeless game worlds where player choices come last.
EQN "may" reverse the trend. We'll see.
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