Age of Conan. While it didn't last long for me at launch, I came back later after it had gone free to play, and all I could think was, "Wow, I'd love to have dug deeper into this game when it was populated."
And second, Horizons. Only because I never got to play it. My friend played it when SWG experienced the NGE. I had already moved on to FFXI for a bit until WoW released, and ... well, that was that for a few years.
Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, both unique MMORPGs that I felt could've been great if the studios behind them had been given good support/weren't being led by a quack.
Also, DAoC.
Honestly, I know people would bitch, but I strongly feel MMORPG development after release should be focused on updating, evolving, and replacing existing content, not adding brand new content. It would result in less overall work, and it would keep the entire game fresh. It would be far more difficult to nail down, min/max, and streamline a game where this month's big baddie is a slash resistant, frost immune giant, but next week's is a blunt immune stone golem with a weakness to acid damage, and the leveling quests and landscape changed every few months.
Throw that on top of classes that have unique mechanics and playstyles, and rolling an alt becomes a fresh new experience from the ground up, instead of just using new abilities to complete the exact same content.
Edit- hell, you could kind of skirt balance even by creating magical drop items that then lose their magical energy via some kind of lore-friendly mechanism (i.e. the frost giants' have returned and are absorbing latent frost energy, rendering the Magical Ice Pickaxe of Doom +5 drained of all its magical properties) in case an item ends up being too powerful.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Fresh eyes again to Firefall The original Destiny, it beat Destiny to the gate by a couple months. Tons of cool mech suites (each it’s own class) you could glide right off the bat. A massive Truly Alien world plus a small endgame world. It was in my opinion the first Live Service “not mmo”. game. Well players either didn’t get the concept ( of course we did) or to bad Red5 didn’t have the marketing budget of Bungie. Hopping it’s better then I remembered. Like Regular Show, my son and I had this great build up from watching it together when he was a kid. He’s 18 now Just started rewatching together, man it’s freaking way better than we remember. Don’t ya wish most stuff was?
DAOC Midgard here. Man I miss that game. But I would have to say the one that introduced it all to me...Everquest. Like others have mentioned the sense of awe that came wih that game has yet to be replicated. It was the first game that felt like a true world. No hand holding, tons of mysteries, and reliance on others as they relied on you, true classes, and such a diversified world. The game had it all and shaped my view of what MMO's should be like. DAOC did almost everything EQ did but added my first real MMO PVP experience as I was in love with that too.
I would say SWG, but I can already do that with one of the many emulators out there now. The original secret world would be great too, but if we are recreating the original experience of a MMO, for me it would probably be The Matrix Online. The fact that they regularly had an evolving storyline with world changing immersive events where devs played and acted out major characters from the movies, and the Wachowski brothers (at the time) were completely involved in the writing of the storyline made it great. Gameplay could've been better, but nothing else made you feel like you were a part of a movie!
Comments
Age of Conan. While it didn't last long for me at launch, I came back later after it had gone free to play, and all I could think was, "Wow, I'd love to have dug deeper into this game when it was populated."
And second, Horizons. Only because I never got to play it. My friend played it when SWG experienced the NGE. I had already moved on to FFXI for a bit until WoW released, and ... well, that was that for a few years.
Also, DAoC.
Honestly, I know people would bitch, but I strongly feel MMORPG development after release should be focused on updating, evolving, and replacing existing content, not adding brand new content. It would result in less overall work, and it would keep the entire game fresh. It would be far more difficult to nail down, min/max, and streamline a game where this month's big baddie is a slash resistant, frost immune giant, but next week's is a blunt immune stone golem with a weakness to acid damage, and the leveling quests and landscape changed every few months.
Throw that on top of classes that have unique mechanics and playstyles, and rolling an alt becomes a fresh new experience from the ground up, instead of just using new abilities to complete the exact same content.
Edit- hell, you could kind of skirt balance even by creating magical drop items that then lose their magical energy via some kind of lore-friendly mechanism (i.e. the frost giants' have returned and are absorbing latent frost energy, rendering the Magical Ice Pickaxe of Doom +5 drained of all its magical properties) in case an item ends up being too powerful.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
DAOC Midgard here. Man I miss that game. But I would have to say the one that introduced it all to me...Everquest. Like others have mentioned the sense of awe that came wih that game has yet to be replicated. It was the first game that felt like a true world. No hand holding, tons of mysteries, and reliance on others as they relied on you, true classes, and such a diversified world. The game had it all and shaped my view of what MMO's should be like. DAOC did almost everything EQ did but added my first real MMO PVP experience as I was in love with that too.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer