Ideas and Opinions about MMORPGs

Tymora

There are many MMORPGs that are in development.  A few big name games are coming soon.  I can imagine that most gamers that play MMORPGs have played Everquest.  If not, EQ, then maybe Ultima Online, or Dark Age of Camelot.  There are plenty of games already with success and some have really set the standard for the genre.  I am curious about the new games coming.  Especially Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, and Middle Earth Online.  Will they live up to expectation of gamers?  Will they just make minor additions and innovations to an already successful formula?  I expect alot.  The MMORPG has come a long way, but in my opinion there has been s sort of standstill lately, besides the graphics moving forward, few games have really pushed ahead and created some new innovative things.  Star Wars Galaxies impressed me most with the flexibility of gameplay, and how they make it very accessable for roleplayers.  Also, SWG and Horizons have made crafting something worthwhile, escpecially Horizons which has made crafters absolutely necessary in the storyline ofthe game.  Dark Age of Camelot pushed PvP to the limits.  Anarchy Online tried to fix the camping aspect of MMORPGs with individual dungeons and missions, which worked, if not for all the bugs.  These and many other ideas incorporated into MMORPGs have improved them overall, but I am still looking for that game that will put us all in awe and amke the game new and exciting.  here's what I think some new games will offer, tell me what you think.

World of Warcraft:
Streamlined gameplay, few bugs compared to most other MMORPGs at release, but I wouldn't count on it being flawless.
Excellent atmosphere, storylines dating way back to the Real Time Strategy games, and an interesting world to explore.
I can imagine the combat system is goingto be alot of fun.
Limited roleplay opporunity from what I see so far.
The Quest system is still "iffy" in my opinion.
Will the "grind" and leveling tredmill be like other games before it?

Everquest 2:
Content.  I'll be looking for an expansive, in-depth background to the destroyed world of Norrath, with so many opportunities for roleplaying and immersion.
Character creation, advancement will be deep, from what little I know about it, I cannot be sure of this, but I am predicting it.
Huge gameworld, many, many quests, items, weapons, monsters.
Will there still be camping for that uber-lewt?
Can they ever stop the selling of these items on E-bay?

Middle Earth Online:
So far, a huge let down for me.  It sounded so promising at first, with perma-death and a middle earth that would feel just like what Tolkein wrote. 
It's not going to be the Middle Earth we all know and love.  It's be a good game, most likely, but not what a hardcore Tolkein fan will appreciate.  Youcan't please everyone I guess, and Turbine seems to be taking the road to $$$ instead of the path to a true depiction of Middle Earth.

Lastly, I would like to mention a game that I will not say anything about other than I am super anxious for it's release.  I don't want to jinx it, because I got my hopes up for Middle Earth Online and some other games that have failed to meet expectations, so I am leaving this one alone and waiting to see for myself.  Dark and Light may be the game of the future.

sturm117

I do have to agree with you that the most recent of games have been for the most part, rather big let downs for me.  I love crafting, but it can't make the game and I didn't see much other reason in Horizons that had me wanting to keep playing.  SWG had a lot of good ideas.....then they released it without have of what they said and full of bugs(not to mention horrible customer service....the game deleted 100k credits of mine and they acknowledged it and wouldnt refund me squat).  I am looking forward to some of the upcoming games however and am hoping for a big boost to the mmorpg genre.

WOW-I have no idea what your talking about quests, but that is what the developers are going for.  The ideas i've read that they have put into the game so far sound very nice.  I was/am hoping that they allow at least one all out AvH server where you can fight your enemy anyway("hey an orc, but I can't kill them now even though they are my mortal enemy?").  PvP could still be fun in the game, but I can't see it helping out the story in anyway, only hurting the way they've said it's going to be.

MEO-Also a major let down to me, though I see it for different reasons.  They are trying to stick to the story/world of Tolkien, so much in fact that they won't allow you to be the evil races, because it might ruin it.  However they are still allowing pvp, which I think will be worse to the story than pvp against evil races.  The class progression does sound like a good idea, but who knows if it will work out all that well or not yet, that will have to wait until later.  For the most part, the more I learn about this game, the more dissapointed I become.

EQ2-To be honest I haven't been following this game much at all and don't know much about it.  A friend of mine(who enjoys similar aspects of mmorpg's as I) said that it doesn't look promising enough.  I will look into it and draw my own conclussions, however I'm not gonna hold my breath.

WOW looks to be the game of my future, however depending on how it actually turns out and how well the Frontiers expansion in DAOC is made, I may re-subscribe, because daoc has been the funnest pvp game that I have experienced.

kingslayer

I have been let down so many times recently, I wonder why I even want to play an  MMO anymore.  Although there are plenty of people who will say that these games are great, these games all let me down for what I wanted from an MMO:

AC2- hmm maybe I didn't play long enough only about 2 months, but there was nothing that appealed to me

SWG - when devs stop releasing incomplete content, and bug ridden games, world peace wont be far behind

Horizons - graphically a turn off for me.  It had little or no immersion factor for me.

Planetside -  Can you say  Deja'vu all over again.  kill, spawn, rinse repeat..

WWiionline -  While a fun game for about 2 years, I really played that long in expectation.  I was hoping they would tie up all the loose ends as they promised, ofcourse they never did.  An ambitious game to say the lest.

Shadowbane - it was 3 years dated the day it released.  I respect what they were trying to accomplish, I think the idea was great, the follow through was uninspired.

 

I will however continue to keep a look out for the game that will grab my attention.  Hopefully it will come soon