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WOW Alternatives
r22003
Member Posts: 13
looking for an alternative to wow that is somewhat similar but yet not so far different that i cant figure it out within an hour or so. looking for something to play that is mostly PVE rather than PVP because i hate fighting other people im not much into competition if you get me. the graphics dont have to be extreme or gorgeous just mildly addicting. i like questing and being able to do so solo unless there is a great amount of people to group with in the area to do the quests or instances(kinda kills wow sometimes.) anyways thanks for the advice im looking forward to it. peace.
Comments
Aren't we all....
Try LOTRO its pretty quest heavy and pretty fun
Im not, kinda sick of the same ol' grab quest > Go here > kill 10 of these and that bla bla bla.. All the level based games are the same.
I suggest EQ2 to try next.
Lord of the Rings Online has similar game mechanics to WoW and is just beautiful to look at. Soon, they're also added some nice features that WoW does not have, like player housing. And you'll be playing in Middle Earth, which (in my opinion) provides a much better backdrop for adventuring then the often nonsensical storylines of Warcraft.
I recommend Everquest 2. It is just a deeper game then World of Warcraft. I played (and still have an active account) World of Warcraft for about 2 years total. The game is pretty shallow when it comes to doing anything. Everquest 2 has more depth, better lore (imo), better classes (also imo), a more robust crafting system, more world to explore, and all around a better experience. World of Warcraft is a good game but it gets old really fast. Everything is kind of just more of the same. Raiding gets old, PVP gets old, grinding out money, factions, recipes, etc gets old.
IMO World of warcraft is really fun for your first character or two until you get to the end game. Then it gets boring fast. After about 2 characters or so it is almost impossible to not be burnt out when leveling a new character or realizing that everything is more of the same.
War Beta Tester
Lotro is pretty simple, Eq2 is a nice game, Guild Wars is fun and Hellgate London which is coming out Halloween will be a nice game to play as well. Good luck on your search!
EVE.... would definitely not be the game for you.... like others have suggested.. you are a perfect candidate for LoTRO....
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As above , I would suggest EQ2 and LOTRO
Good Luck
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
ok i have to say i dont really like the classes of lotro they seem kinda too "standardized" and rather lacking..... but on that note obviously the overall opinion is to try lotro or eq2, now i must ask which game is more for the casual gamer.... cause i do have to go to school daily and do all my homework and stuff(in college) and im also not a huge fan of lotr so lotro doesnt have that appeal for me.
Well that all depends on what type of player you are and how happy you are with what you have accomplished in the game.
Meaning if you are a player who has to race to the endcap then LOTRO is probably the better choice for a more casual gamer.
If you can take your time and enjoy the way then Everquest 2 is probably the best choice. Everquest 2 has a lot more content. Plus they added in that new Legends of Norrath card game that you can play in game and out of game. (It actually is fun and I was never one to play card games but my friend got me to try it out)
I would say play Everquest 2 until Hellgate releases then try out hellgate. Play one of those two until WAR releases then give WAR a try.
War Beta Tester
I would suggest LOTR it is very similar to wow and like others have said it is beautiful. In terms of graphics it can be argued that its graphics are even better than Vanguard's. Mainly because LOTR's zones are more complete and things fit better, Vanguard has better looking armor but LOTR's views, towns and scenery are arguably the best of any game. LOTR's quests are good and well done. If you read the books it is likley you will love playing in middle earth. The gameplay is good and solid but IMO lacking something. I can only play LOTR for a day or two then I need to play Vanguard for another month before I can play LOTR again. It is fun game but it seems to lack the addiction or fun factor that WOW or Vanguard has. Although it is leaps and bounds above bad games like Eq2 in terms of fun. Butthats all opinion and taste. One persons idea of a bad game can be anothers dream game, But if uyour looking for an easy game to pick up and have fun there is no betetr game out there than LOTR.
I would strongly avoid EQ2. SOE has attempted to copy and make a clone of WoW with EQ2. But they have done a very poor job. The game has no substance or soul. It lacks depth and has an awful combat system. The graphics are ugly, has no style and is drab and ugly looking. People try to say WoW is simple compared to EQ2 burt WoW has a lot mrope depth and requires more skill rather than EQ2's idea of combat of mindless button mashing. EQ2 attemped to copy WoW's quest directed gameplay but their quests are terrible and lack sohistication and depth of WoW quests. IMO EQ2 is possibly the mosy dissapointing and worst game ever developed. They took 25 millon and attemped to copy as much of WOW as they could with no understanding of what makes a fun game. Simply copyiong other games and then installing medicore poorly implemented features does not make a game fun. If you looking for a more complicated game than WoW try Vanguard. It is a 100 times better than EQ2 but beware Vanguard i very unploished, unstable and unfinshed and is completely lacking in roadmarks. But the core of its game, combat , crafting, classes and the world is arguably the best of any game out there. It lacks the shallow and hollowness of EQ2. It is probably the best bad game ever developed.
WoW is a lot more shallow and hollow then EQ2 is. EQ2 has a more interesting background story, it has a more fleshed out lore (including different quests that involve famous items from EQ1, Diety quests to align with a god, betrayal quests if you want to switch your evil race to good or vice versa), it has more fleshed out classes instead of the same classes for both sides. It has more quests and more interesting quests then World of Warcrat does. You can do heritage quests (quests about the items from EQ1), Heroic quests, solo quests, collection quests (you search for different items), lore quests, language quests to learn the different languages, etc.
For example when I made my new character I decided I wanted to play a "good" ratonga. So I started in Neriak as a Ratonga Assassin. I did my betrayal quest, which involves helping some people and then escaping from the city, this allowed me to become an exile in the Haven. Then I worked on quests to become a citizen of Kethelin (which is the good city of the Fae people) after completing the different quests from this guy I was able to become a citizen and then by becoming a citizen I switched from assassin to Ranger. That is just one example of the more in depth game play that EQ2 has. Another good example is the fact that you can find Lore books that will give you quests to learn about the different creatures. You will have to collect different body parts from the creature and then study them to learn about the creature. in doing so you end up gaining a skill that helps you by causing more damage against that particular mob racial type.
World of warcraft is one of the most basic of the big MMOs currently out on the market. I would say of the 30+ that I have played or tested that only CoH/CoV and Guild Wars are more basic then WoW (and guild wars only for the PVE aspect as I never really got into the PVP aspect of the game) . Pretty much every other MMO (including EQ1, EQ2, FFXI, DAoC, AC1, LOTRO, Lineage 2, DDO, SWG, UO, etc) are all more complex then World of Warcraft.
Maybe that is one of the better things that WoW did right. It has obviously allowed them to gain a ton of subscribers. But it is laughable to call WoW more deep then pretty much any other MMO game.
War Beta Tester
If you recall both WoW and EQ2 had close to 500k subscribers about a month or two after release and EQ2 then dropped dramatically and now has 173k subscribers and wow has 9 millon. EQ2 was the bigger game and the more anticipated game. The reason one failed and one succeeeded was word of moth. One was a terrible game that tried to clone and copy WoW while the other stuck to its vision. SOE simply did not have time to copy WoW's quest directed system nor the understanding of what makes a game fun. It really came down to the difference in philosophies. Blizzard stuck to its vision and would not introduce new content into the game until old content worked perfectly. SOE's philosophy was to copy other games features put them in game with almost no testing then ignore that they don't work well and introduce more poorly implemented features. No quality control, no overall vision jusyt a hodpodge stew of bad and poorly mixed ideas thats end result was soulless bland game with no taste or feeling.
Wow's combat system is miles beyond EQ2's button mashing thoughtless combat. SOE has and never will understand that games are about fun, thought and strategy. Smmething EQ2 severely lacks. While its easy to level in WoW doing quests the game has more depth. The classes and skills are more fleshed out than EQ2 which essentially has 4 versions of 4 poorly though out classes. I am not a fan of the archetype system as it can make classes very bland and similar although Vanguard did an amazing job of differntiating its classes using an archetype system. But Sigil also took an amazing amount of time developing its classes and core systems of combat, crafting etc which arguably may have resulted in most of the world being quite unfinished. The combat in WoW is better and requires more thought. Yes it is easier to pick up but it has more depth, bells and whistels and can be mastered. What WoW lacks is difficulty in its dungeons and group play. A group can be asleep and still win. In this area EQ2 certainly wins. But WoW's bells and whistles and core gameplay is supperior and allows skilled players to differentiate themselves from poor players much more easily. But in that regard neither game is anything close to Vanguard in margin or error or the ability for skilled players to achieve greater success. Interms of reaching maximum level both games are laughable easy although wow;s journey to max level is almost unquestionaly much better and more exciting. Although what game does not have easy leveling even in Vanguard now its leveling speed is approaching that of WoW. But the biggest difference between WoW and eq2 is WoW players want to keep playing until their eyes bleed while the first and only thing most Eq2 players think of is when can I log off.
But again its one persons opinion and we all have different tastes. But it is hard to argue that EQ2 is anything but a poorly implemented clone and copy of WoW. SOE simply realized EQ2 was failing to late in development and when they attempted to overhaul its design and become a WoW clone it was to late to make anything other than a shallow poorly made and flawed game. EQ2 is an example of flash over substance of quantity over quality. It has lots of shiny looking things but its core gameplay elements are subpar and severely lacking.
If you recall both WoW and EQ2 had close to 500k subscribers about a month or two after release and EQ2 then dropped dramatically and now has 173k subscribers and wow has 9 millon. EQ2 was the bigger game and the more anticipated game. The reason one failed and one succeeeded was word of moth. One was a terrible game that tried to clone and copy WoW while the other stuck to its vision. SOE simply did not have time to copy WoW's quest directed system nor the understanding of what makes a game fun. It really came down to the difference in philosophies. Blizzard stuck to its vision and would not introduce new content into the game until old content worked perfectly. SOE's philosophy was to copy other games features put them in game with almost no testing then ignore that they don't work well and introduce more poorly implemented features. No quality control, no overall vision jusyt a hodpodge stew of bad and poorly mixed ideas.
Wow's combat system is miles beyond EQ2's button mashing thoughtless combat. SOE has and never will understand that games are about fun, thought and strategy. Smmethging EQ2 severely lacks. While its easy to level in WoW doing quests the game has more depth. The classes and skills are more fleshed out than EQ2 which essentially has 4 poor versions of 4 classes. The combat is better and requires more thought. Yes it is easier to pick up but it has more depth, bells and whistels and can be mastered. What WoW lacks is difficulty in its dungeons and group play. A group can be asleep and still win. In this area EQ2 certainly wins. But WoW's bells and whistles and core gameplay is supperior and allows skilled players to differentiate themselves from poor players much more easily. But in that regard neither game is anything clsoe to Vanguard in margin or error or the ability for skilled players to achieve greater success. Interms of reaching maximum level both games are laughable easy although wow;s journey to max level is almost unquestionaly much better and more exciting. Although what game does not have easy leveling even in Vanguard now its leveling speed is approaching that of WoW.
But again its one persons opinion and we all have different tastes. But it is hard to argue that EQ2 is anything but a poorly implented clone and copy of WoW. SOE simply realized EQ2 was failing to late in development and when they attempted to overhaul its design and become a WoW clone it was to late to make anything other than a shallow poorly made and flawed game. EQ2 is an example of flash over substance of quantity over quality. It has lots of shiny looking things but its core gameplay elements are subpar and severely lacking.
Your last paragraph better describes world of Warcraft then Everquest 2. You obviously haven't played Everquest 2 any time recently. Everquest 2 has better combat in my opinion. WoW was all button mashing. There is no skill involved in World of Warcraft as they recently had to ban a "legal" UI mod because it made the game playable with one button. Everything that class needed to do was done by pushing 1 button. How is that complex?As a Rogue and as a Warrior I played the game and I never found this complex in depth combat that you speak of. IT was extremely easy and anyone that had played games before could pick it up and master it pretty quickly. I love your use of "skilled players" when talking about World of Warcraft. Yes their Orange and Purples make them so much more skilled. Since that is the only thing that differentiates between players. Who ever has the better gear wins. It is that plain and simple. World of Warcraft has never been a deep game and it has never required any skill to play.
Which is fine. It was never meant to be a deep game and it was never meant to be complex. Blizzard aimed for the lowest common denominator on gameplay, system specs, and skill level. That way they could maximize their subscriptions.
War Beta Tester
Try EQ2. The mechanics are similar enough to WoW that I was able to pick it up very quickly. The PvP is nothing special, so the game's focus is on PvE. The graphics aren't wonderful, but can look very goo dif you have a good system, and are still tolerable on a low- to mid-range machine. You can play any class solo, though some are much easier than others (with my monk, I prefer solo to grouping).
Get the free trial and see what you think.
Try Perfect World: http://perfectworld.com.my
Wow's combat system is miles beyond EQ2's button mashing thoughtless combat. SOE has and never will understand that games are about fun, thought and strategy. Smmething EQ2 severely lacks. While its easy to level in WoW doing quests the game has more depth. The classes and skills are more fleshed out than EQ2 which essentially has 4 versions of 4 poorly though out classes. I am not a fan of the archetype system as it can make classes very bland and similar although Vanguard did an amazing job of differntiating its classes using an archetype system. But Sigil also took an amazing amount of time developing its classes and core systems of combat, crafting etc which arguably may have resulted in most of the world being quite unfinished. The combat in WoW is better and requires more thought. Yes it is easier to pick up but it has more depth, bells and whistels and can be mastered. What WoW lacks is difficulty in its dungeons and group play. A group can be asleep and still win. In this area EQ2 certainly wins. But WoW's bells and whistles and core gameplay is supperior and allows skilled players to differentiate themselves from poor players much more easily. But in that regard neither game is anything close to Vanguard in margin or error or the ability for skilled players to achieve greater success. Interms of reaching maximum level both games are laughable easy although wow;s journey to max level is almost unquestionaly much better and more exciting. Although what game does not have easy leveling even in Vanguard now its leveling speed is approaching that of WoW. But the biggest difference between WoW and eq2 is WoW players want to keep playing until their eyes bleed while the first and only thing most Eq2 players think of is when can I log off.
This is just a joke. I saw 10 years old kids beating 35 years old in netcafe in WoW, just because the kid was able to smash buttons a bit faster. No matter how intelligent you are, the combat comes down to gear (80%) button smashing (20%) skill (0%). I consider skill an actual intelligence.
If you say wow has better combat it requires skill, it has better classes than EQ2 or Vanguard. Are you serious? I mean did you even try those two games?
Reaching maximum level in vanguard and EQ2 is laughable easy and you play WoW? Dear god. I actually managed to level up a paladin 2 years back in WoW to get to level 60 without any single death in 4 days 23 hours played time on a new server. You say its more enjoyable in WoW? Can you be more specific or its just your personal feeling. Still you could reason out why do you think so.
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