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LF New Game, Something like Vanguard perhaps
ketzerei84
Member UncommonPosts: 81
First off let me begin by listing the games I enjoyed the most, and the reasons I quit them.
I played and enjoyed EverQuest(1) until the end of the Darkhollow Expansion. I quit at this point because, with a declining population and heavy-group focus I was pretty much forced to multi-box to progress in the game or get gear, and then it became a 60 dolla ra month fiasco of 10 hour play sessions farming gear for all my box accounts so they were geared enough to farm stuff for my main. I attempted to return to EQ recently, and found it extremely overbloated. Level 100 max(105 soon), an even lower population than when I quit, even with mercenaries I found the game still required me to play two characters to progress, and I still had to pay $15/mo per account for this "f2p" game plus buy expansions. I also absolutely detest the crafting system in EQ1.
I played EverQuest 2 from launch through the Sinking Sands, and then the lower population, major overhauls to game systems, and what I call "bloat creep" got to me.
I played and absolutely loved SWG pre-cu, and still occasionally play around on the emu, but the old community is gone and none of my friends play now.
I played WoW, and greatly enjoyed both classic and burning crusade. I neither liked, nor disliked, lich king but played on as a top end raider with a great group of friends, we left to go to RIFT together and played there together until around patch 1.6.
My absolute favorite MMO of all time, ever, was Vanguard. I didn't quit, Sony forced me out. Despite an offer of 10k to SoE for rights to host the server and manage it with community volunteers while still having their cash shop in the game. John Smedley is the worst human being on the planet and should be shot, hung, drawn and quartered, boiled in oil, electrocuted, and tarred and feathered simultaneously while in a gas chamber.
I've also played: ESO, Wildstar, Tabula Rasa, GW, GW2, Aion, PWI, STO, DDO, LoTRO, Neverwinter, ArcheAge, SWToR, TSW, Defiance, EVE(currently playing this off and on, it holds my interest for a while then I only log on to set skills for a while, so my interest level fluctuates majorly here)
What I dislike:
Bloat Creep - I don't want to play a game where the level cap, alternate advancement or whatever have you system, and gear grind are massively inflated leaving a huge gap between a newcomer and the entire rest of the population. Older games seem to do an increase of 5-10 levels per expansion and it just leaves me overwhelmed trying to rush through content I'd rather enjoy with a group because nobody plays it anymore because they're all 10 expansions and 100 levels ahead of me.
Forced PvP - I enjoy the occasional PvP match, but I'm very touchy about it. For example, in Neverwinter there are no gear checks on players in PvP, everyone regardless of gear level is thrown int he same match and so a newcomer just gets smashed on by those decked out in full pvp gear. I enjoy optional PvP that matches players on level and gear - much like WoWs arena system, although I do enjoy higher number matches. Something like WoW's Arena in a 20v20 match that I can choose to do when I feel like it would be awesome.
Crappy Crafting System - I cannot overstress just how annoying I find horrible crafting systems, EQ1 has the worst crafting system in any MMO ever, requiring hours upon hours of farming materials from mob drops to do hundreds of combines for a few skillups, to do it all over again because you need max skill in every tradeskill to make anything worth using. On the other hand, I find the fire and forget mass crafting in WoW and RIFT to be kindof lame. Something in-between the two such as Vanguard's crafting system was, or EQ2's is would be nice.
What I like:
Grouping Rewarded - I don't want to be forced to group to get anything done, but I would like to be able to get in a group and be rewarded for doing so. Nowadays it seems like most MMOs I play nobody wants to group because it's more of a hindrance or a bother than a benefit to do so. I want to be able to solo, but be rewarded to group.
Great PvE - One of my favorite things about Vanguard was the sheer amount of content available. Every race had their own starting city, starter quest area, even a low-mid-teens quest area, before you eventually started running into other races in your late teens and 20s. Even then at every level from 20 on up you had at least 3 different areas you could go quest in, plus there were tons of mini-dungeons that you could do with 2 or more players at almost any level, and quite a few dungeons that required a full group to clear not only at max level, but also while you were leveling. There were tons of quest chains that had fantastic rewards that you needed to do with a group, a good mix of 3-4 players might be able to handle them, but they were designed for 6 - at the same time the rewards from these quests, while being obvious upgrades over solo gear, weren't so overpowered compared to what you could get soloing that nobody would group with you if you hadn't done them.
Raiding, but not as the only thing to do at end-game - Another thing Vanguard had right, yes there were raids at end-game, and they did provide the absolute best gear. But it didn't leave raiders being 10x more powerful than casuals like the system in WoW or EQ did. You could get great rewards from running end-game dungeons, and better rewards from running end-game raids. Yet the gear-gap wasn't so big that a group geared player was undesirable to raiders. That was a huge problem for me in EQ1 - group gear was crap compared to raid gear, and a group geared character was undesirable for a raid-geared group. At one point I was one of the elitist end-game raiders in EQ1, and a standard tactic to use when assembling a group was to only take people from the top 3-5 raiding guilds on your server. The reasons behind that were many, but for an example: my raid geared rogue did so much damage that a group-geared tank couldn't hold aggro off of me, so why would I bother with a group geared tank when I'd just end up tanking anyway? Either I'd get a raid geared tank, or find another dps because, after all, in my raid gear I had better hp and ac than that dirty casual anyway.
Finally, and this one is important - I absolutely do not want to play SWToR ever again. When you have a game where everybody can be a freaking jedi/sith you end up with a bunch of immature kids playing. Then your game experience turns into GTA5 - I'd enjoy it if i didn't have a bunch of 12 year olds talking about screwing my mom every time I glance at chat. I also do not want to play WoW or RIFT again - I find them too bloated now, and the only reason I would play again(my old friends who played with me) is highly unlikely to ever occur.
I'd considered going back to GW2 and checking it out(haven't played since the first update they did to the game), my playtime isn't insanely high like it was when I was still in college, so I need to be able to play for only an hour or two most days and 2-8 on weekends without being utterly and totally left in the dirt by all my friends. The only thing I remember disliking in GW2 was that the dungeons absolutely sucked on my Ranger as I ended up kiting every boss, ever, because I was the highest dps and the trinity doesn't exist there. And frankly, if I wanted to kite instead of shoot, I wouldn't be an arrow unloading slaughter machine, would i?
Playing: Secret World: Legends
Waiting for: Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
Comments
I don't know, FFXIV is pretty much the king of bloat and the endgame has the same 'raids be-all to end-all' that the OP seems to want to avoid. New tiers of gear come out every 3-6 months creating a very top heavy experience and in the first 3 months of the 6 month cycle they have intentionally made it such that raiding is where it is at (whats worse is it is only a single raid each time). I would say that it is rather easy to catch up to the curve (they nerf content in order to make catch-up easier along side introductions of new tiers of gear) but this is the same in WoW I believe and you seemed to have a problem with it there (personally I just hate the hamster wheel nature of it, push and push and you always stay where you're at relative to the curve). So I cannot recommend it. I would dispute your perception and definition of a few things (such as what a raid is, everquest had a bunch of large group content that I would not actually classify as raids), OP, but it really doesn't matter as regardless I think I get the jist of what you're looking for from your detailed outline of it.
Vanguard was sortof like a middle ground between a wow style game and everquest. Suffice to say the kind of game everquest was early on pretty much doesn't exist on the market at the moment (If im wrong correct me, i've been looking for such a thing) with even everquest and games of that type having changed their designs. That being the case, a lot of the kinds of things you're looking for don't exist even in much of a mixed quantity like they did in vanguard.
However, being that you liked SWG there is an upcoming game that I have seen all over as being a spiritual successor to SWG. I believe it is called: the repopulation or something. I don't know much about it myself but maybe thats something you might want to look into.
The obvious answer to the OP is ArcheAge, except maybe for the 'great PvE' thing, because AA's focus is not that. It is simply standard IMO, not great. It is elsewhere that it truly excels.
That said, apart from that, AA has so much in common with VG spiritually it would be hard to not bring into this conversation.
I know AA is on the end of a lot of tedious pedantic fashionable hate right now, but hey ho. Maybe a few more can see beyond that.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Yep, I would also recommend ArcheAge.
Though it might be wise to wait another week so that the queues don't drive you bonkers. (I imagine they'll have them under control by then).
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
SWTOR Referral Link
Free Goodies for new or returning players.
See what it gets you Here
Well, I will suggest Project:Gorgon if you like the old style mmo's. It is currently in alpha, so not amazing in graphics but it easily makes up for it in systems and is a skill based progression system. I'm not aware of any raids although I do know some bosses in open world dungeons, but you can easily solo or group play. It is F2P and is a lot like Asherons Call 1 if you ever played that.
Take a look and try it out
http://projectgorgon.com
Otherwise, if your looking for something released I would probably say AA if you can log onto a server.
Having a blast with this game. Sadly, there are less than 3 days left of the kickstarter, and it probably will not be funded.
SWTOR Referral Link
Free Goodies for new or returning players.
See what it gets you Here
Here's hoping they do another one, it sure isn't gonna die that's for sure. Been a large influx of players it seems, I'm loving my time in it.
That is sad!
As for OP, judging from his game list and wants I would agree, Repopulation is probably his best bet. Also I am am going to say, probably another grizzled vet who at 30 years, is already a bit burnt out on too many MMO's. So waiting for the Repop is probably a good idea anyway.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
I've played AA, and probably will play it off and on when the queue issue dies down. 4 hours of waiting, afk for 5min, and find myself having been booted for being inactive after finally getting again to do it all over again...
The Repopulation is something I've been following, not sure how I feel about their PvP system, but we'll see.
Also off-and-on playing TSW, doesn't grip my interest long-term, but I tend to play in spurts of a week or so.
Wildstar is something I've been having a lot of fun in, then again I'm not max level and my views on the game may change when I am.
GW/GW2 - been playing both of these pretty heavily actually. Yes, they are "primarily PvP focused" but I find the PvE systems to be livable, and a perma-pre on GW is actually somewhat difficult to accomplish both Legendary Survivor and Legendary Defender on.
Playing: Secret World: Legends
Waiting for: Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen