Pre-Trammel UO, DAoC a very very close second. Currently back playing Vanguard and enjoying it since this last update. Heres hoping it continues to improve.
But without a doubt, Original UO was the best all time.
Asheron's Call was my first and my favorite MMO of all time. The events were cool and made you feel like you were really a part of the world. It was skill based not class based. The world was open and HUGE. Every month brought a new patch that flowed with the story. Certain villains and NPCs - Asheron, Bael'Zharon, Martien... were played by the devs themselves and would interact with you. Asheron's Call should have been the blueprint for future MMO's instead of EQ.
In AC2 they took almost everything that made AC1 so great and tossed it out the proverbial window. That's what happens when you listen to the people complaining rather than the people who enjoy the game.
Certain villains and NPCs - Asheron, Bael'Zharon, Martien... were played by the devs themselves and would interact with you. Asheron's Call should have been the blueprint for future MMO's instead of EQ.
This is a cool idea. In the starting days of EQ1, the lore good-guys were sometimes played by GM's. When Firiona Vie made a Christmas-like appearance handing out goodies, everyone went ape. I didn't like the whole 'gimme gimme' part, but I think GM's should actually play major roles. How nifty is it to take down an enemy who is a thinking, breathing GM?
But i'm pretty sure Lineage 2 was the one that gave me more fun. I doubt i'm going to enjoy a game in the future like i did enjoy the first times in L2. Great community there
LOTRO is my second one, just for the environment and the community.
Everquest because it introduced me to the MMORPG world and SWG( pre CU) was the game that i enjoyed the most by far. ( controlling 3 rancors will never be beat). God i miss those days heh
*Puts on his flame proof suit* The best MMO I've ever played would have to be Star Wars Galaxies. I have played and tried many pay to play and free to play MMOs over the years. None due it for me like SWG in any form, pre-cu to nge and beyond. I've been playing on and off again since the summer of 2004. Only thing that can out do it is if LucasArts and BioWare are indeed working on a KOTOR MMO. *Keeps his flame proof suit on*
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
I like EVE, but there's not enough incentive to sit down and actively play. There's a lot of incentive in logging in, telling your character to study, then log out. I'm still on a two month waiting to get the skills I want to make some kind of profit in mining. Overall the game is beautiful. The missions are fairly cool, but the rewards don't make it worthwhile unless there's something I'm missing. I can't wait for this game to improve over time and see it as something to change pace once a week than a main-game.
"Best" is really subjective. I've played a number of MMOs and there are things I've enjoyed or disliked about each of them, respecitively. Here are some I've enjoyed:
Everquest 1 - the biggest MMO at the time. Was fun, but had huge timesinks and dependencies on other players
City of Heroes/Villains - love the character customization and background stories - was really enjoyable from a creative perspective, but game play could be kind of boring
World of Warcraft - didn't play it extensively, but liked what I played (low level chars only)
Dungeon Runners - more like a MMO-lite version fo Diablo with a snarky sense of humor - gameplay is basic, but fun - designed for short, casual play sessions
Mythos - I felt Mythos and Dungeon Runners were going to be the big casual MMO competitors in 2008, but unfortunately Mythos died due to Flagship's demise. May come back one day, but most likely with a different development team, which means a different game.
Atlantica Online - combat can be surprisingly strategic for a turn-based game. Fun, but has a grindy feel.
Wizard101 - fantastic MMO for kids, fun for adults, too - definitely a random element to combat, which helps keep it exciting for a turn-based, card-based game. Not a lot of depth, but it is primarily for kids and just went live. The dev team is talented and committed, so I expect big things.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning - PVE is WoWish and fairly generic, but the RVR combat is fun as are the public quests. Open grouping is a very nice feature.
It's a love it or hate it type of game - it's very virtual world-ish - there's only one server, it doesn't tell you what to do - it goes out ofi t's way *not* tell you what to do. The story is largely written by the activities of the players. And there's no mandatory grinding. You can't grind skillpoints, and there's lots of passive ways to make money.
So, basicially, I guess i like Eve because I'm free to be whoever I want to be, not who the devs say I should be.
I guess my favorite MMO would be Atlantica Online, just right now, because as you go into the game, I mean raising your level, it keeps on surprising you as a gamer. And also, this is a turn based game in which you rarely see in an MMO.
People will badmouth me big time on this, but I can't help myself!
Neocron 1 was the best MMO I played past Phantasy Star Online on the dreamcast. First MMORPGFPS which actually kinda worked. Classes were simple yet highly customisable & all the game mechanics and locations were barely documented online & the players had to work everything out themselves.
Locations, monsters and music were all scary, & the factions we're simply guidelines to the playerbase on who to kill in PvP. Your best friend could be your enemy tomorrow & vise-versa, the players made the rules. If you died or got PKed you dropped an item which only a Hacker specialist could attempt to steal, putting himself at risk in a hacking mini-game in 30seconds which scaled with much harder difficulty if you tried to hack someone who had not killed anyone in PvP for a long time.
PvP & PvE had a cruel relationship. None of the seperation that goes on today in MMOs. The best PvE dungeons and leveling spots were located near clan Outposts which when owned by a Clan could use them as a teleport spot from anywhere in the world rather than traveling by foot & also a place to store armor & buy ammo. PvP would almost always be going on around or near outposts, making them hot dangerous areas, with you either worrying if someone was going to sneak up behind you, or planning an epic assualt with mates on the unsuspecting loiterers, levelers & defenders inside the outpost.
Tradeskillers we're Needed just to get by as your weapons, armor & vehicles would brake & the only way to repair was to get a repairing tradeskiller to do it for you. That's how you do Tradeskilling in an MMO!
Weapons were cool & had loads of choices & rares, with cool names such as Liberator, Ravager, Cursed Soul & Holy Lightning. You could either buy your gear from shops or get a researcher & constructor tradeskiller to make ones 4 times better for you, with a barter tradeskiller to buy components from NPCs cheaper, implanter to give you crazy implants that artificially increased your levels & skills with some negatives attatched, recycler to turn junk on monsters into ammunition & drugs, driver to drive a tank or assualt APC to an outpost fight or a buggy to drive a friend to the other side of the world.
Weapons which were constructed had a random chance of 0-5 slots which you could enhance with small boosts to the weapon making the difference between a hardcore & a softcore player (which you could still drop on death, increasing the risk factor). Also rare parts (10-15 parts needed to make a rare) could be farmed most effectivly Solo, but we're also effective in groups compensated by higher XP & money.
Bugs were common as hell with lots of crashes to desktop & warping but everyone put up with it in a cheerfull manner. "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" was the famous common phrase most players agreed with.
There is so much more I could talk about but it would be pages so I'll stop myself now. Anyone who played Neocron back 2001-2004 just wanna say never forget the awesome time we all had
Asheron's Call was my first and my favorite MMO of all time. The events were cool and made you feel like you were really a part of the world. It was skill based not class based. The world was open and HUGE. Every month brought a new patch that flowed with the story. Certain villains and NPCs - Asheron, Bael'Zharon, Martien... were played by the devs themselves and would interact with you. Asheron's Call should have been the blueprint for future MMO's instead of EQ. In AC2 they took almost everything that made AC1 so great and tossed it out the proverbial window. That's what happens when you listen to the people complaining rather than the people who enjoy the game.
QFE
AC was far and away the best of the early mmorpg's and EVE is far and way the best of the current crop.
Obviously, I favor skill based games over class based games. In fact, I consider prevalence of class based games (founded on the success of EQ, and the still later and greater success of WOW) to be the single greatest problem with current mmorpg's in that they are intrinsically almost impossible to balance (without turning them into clones in differnt skins) - doubly so when adding in PvP/PVE balance - and the root cause for the never-ending nerf cycles most games undergo.
My favourite game was Neocron (1) during the first 1 or 2 years after release
Reason:
- first-person-shooter-like interface, so fast fighting with pistols cannons, swords, rifles, magic-like psi force or vehicles, you were able to lose some equipment on death, but also get some item of your enemy.
- Clan and faction gameplay, capturing and defending outposts, good teamplay was important
- cooperative gameplay like monster bashing and pvp fighting was combined in many areas
- sandbox style. Clans had their own agenda and made politics. Factions too. So it was really an intense game with lots of love and hate
- characters were not forced to specify too much. Customized hybrid characters were possible and used successfully by people, who knew how to play them. Skill and tactics was important. Numbers didn't matter too much, so you where often able to win outnumbered, if you played better.
I had the most pvp fun in this game and the best group experience with my clan. It was not a power-leveling game, so you weren't forced to bash monsters all the time. If you were in the mood, you could just hang around with some mates, talk, tell jokes, wait for some trouble or provocate someone, have some nice pvp with lots of dead people afterwards like friends vs. others, clan vs. clan, faction vs. faction, just where you were and drink some virtual beer in a virtual pub afterwards.
If maybe a quarter of the server population loves you, but half of the server wants to kill you and the rest doesn't care then it doesn't get boring.
The MMORPGs that I've played so far ( what I enjoyed most comes 1st ):
Neocron (before it changed too much and population dropped), EVE Online (because of sandbox style), WoW (best PvE encounters), City of Heroes, Anarchy Online ... lots of stuff that I tried and that wasn't really original, because it was just powerleveling or just not fun at all.
Besides that I've also played Planetside for some time several years ago and it was also fun at that time, but lacked sandbox rpg features ofc.
Next game has to give me at least the freedom to do, what I like with my clan like it was in Neocron or EVE online. Never gonna play a simple monster-bash, powerlevel, collect-item MMORPG again that forces that playstyle on me, because there is not much else to do or because you can only compete, if you powerlevel all day long.
P.S.: Before I started with MMORPGs, I was playing some MUD, too. It was also a game, where social interaction was more important than powerleveling. We even went camping with ingame friends one summer. That's how I like it.
Most people would say their first MMO was their best experience. I doubt any MMO will ever give me the same thrill or involvement that EQ did, so on some level, it will always be the best to me. If you want to base it on polish and intuitive gaming, then I'd say WOW. Overall, I'd have to say DAoC was my favorite game. Nothing compares to the huge 3 way RvR fights when the game was in its prime (pre-ToA).
MMOs Played: EQ 1&2, DAoC, SWG, Planetside, WoW, GW, CoX, DDO, EVE, Vanguard, TR Playing: WAR Awaiting 40k Online and wishing for Battletech Online
But of the EverQuest generation of games. Dark Age of Camelot. Probably the most unique one out of all of them, and the most feature rich. It had all the features of EverQuest plus addicting and rewarding RvR.
They killed it with expansions though.
Bottom of my list? Probably WoW, because it didn't do anything new. Everything in it I went "I've done this before...in a better game...I think I'll go back to playing that."
Pre-Trammel UO. Was amazing the fear a red name would instil in a person. Ill also never forget ther first time i accidently looted a body in town and some do-good citizen promptly killed me so as to inform me that my actions were illegal. And how about the first time u melee'd a dragon!! That game at up my entire highschool life, and sucks cuz i know i wont like or play a game like that again. PS EA Games give it up and revert so you can get some subscribers back on.
After that only one as came close is DAoC. On WoW now to chill with bro and friends.
My two favorites of all time would have to be Phantasy Star Online, and Ragnarok Online. God those were good times. I remember grinding my ass off in Forest-2, looking/waiting for the day a Heaven's Punisher would drop; and RO's PvP/WoE was just crazy awsome when the GM's decided to join the fun.
I still feel that first-person MMOs still havent matched the depth of play that UO had. I wonder if UO was a first person MMO if it would be as good...I dont think it would be.
Comments
UO baby! EQ then followed by DAOC WOW and LOTRO. Thats my order of my best.
Edit: OMG I left out SWG, how could I leave that out. I would say UO, EQ, SWG, DAOC, WOW, LOTRO, AC
Pre-Trammel UO, DAoC a very very close second. Currently back playing Vanguard and enjoying it since this last update. Heres hoping it continues to improve.
But without a doubt, Original UO was the best all time.
www.90and9.net
www.prophecymma.com
Still World of Warcraft...and anticipating Wrath of the Lich King.
http://www.allaboutgod.com/
Asheron's Call was my first and my favorite MMO of all time. The events were cool and made you feel like you were really a part of the world. It was skill based not class based. The world was open and HUGE. Every month brought a new patch that flowed with the story. Certain villains and NPCs - Asheron, Bael'Zharon, Martien... were played by the devs themselves and would interact with you. Asheron's Call should have been the blueprint for future MMO's instead of EQ.
In AC2 they took almost everything that made AC1 so great and tossed it out the proverbial window. That's what happens when you listen to the people complaining rather than the people who enjoy the game.
This is a cool idea. In the starting days of EQ1, the lore good-guys were sometimes played by GM's. When Firiona Vie made a Christmas-like appearance handing out goodies, everyone went ape. I didn't like the whole 'gimme gimme' part, but I think GM's should actually play major roles. How nifty is it to take down an enemy who is a thinking, breathing GM?
http://www.allaboutgod.com/
I don't know which one is the best.
But i'm pretty sure Lineage 2 was the one that gave me more fun. I doubt i'm going to enjoy a game in the future like i did enjoy the first times in L2. Great community there
LOTRO is my second one, just for the environment and the community.
Nice memories from AC2 too
Everquest because it introduced me to the MMORPG world and SWG( pre CU) was the game that i enjoyed the most by far. ( controlling 3 rancors will never be beat). God i miss those days heh
*Puts on his flame proof suit* The best MMO I've ever played would have to be Star Wars Galaxies. I have played and tried many pay to play and free to play MMOs over the years. None due it for me like SWG in any form, pre-cu to nge and beyond. I've been playing on and off again since the summer of 2004. Only thing that can out do it is if LucasArts and BioWare are indeed working on a KOTOR MMO. *Keeps his flame proof suit on*
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
Earth & Beyond - maby becuse it was my first mmo expierience.
I still miss my Jenquai Explorer and this magic musik.
Have played many other mmorpgs , but noone willl ever be like the first.
Now im enjoing Tabula Rasa , hope to see Kotor mmo when it will be ready.
I like EVE, but there's not enough incentive to sit down and actively play. There's a lot of incentive in logging in, telling your character to study, then log out. I'm still on a two month waiting to get the skills I want to make some kind of profit in mining. Overall the game is beautiful. The missions are fairly cool, but the rewards don't make it worthwhile unless there's something I'm missing. I can't wait for this game to improve over time and see it as something to change pace once a week than a main-game.
http://www.allaboutgod.com/
"Best" is really subjective. I've played a number of MMOs and there are things I've enjoyed or disliked about each of them, respecitively. Here are some I've enjoyed:
Everquest 1 - the biggest MMO at the time. Was fun, but had huge timesinks and dependencies on other players
City of Heroes/Villains - love the character customization and background stories - was really enjoyable from a creative perspective, but game play could be kind of boring
World of Warcraft - didn't play it extensively, but liked what I played (low level chars only)
Dungeon Runners - more like a MMO-lite version fo Diablo with a snarky sense of humor - gameplay is basic, but fun - designed for short, casual play sessions
Mythos - I felt Mythos and Dungeon Runners were going to be the big casual MMO competitors in 2008, but unfortunately Mythos died due to Flagship's demise. May come back one day, but most likely with a different development team, which means a different game.
Atlantica Online - combat can be surprisingly strategic for a turn-based game. Fun, but has a grindy feel.
Wizard101 - fantastic MMO for kids, fun for adults, too - definitely a random element to combat, which helps keep it exciting for a turn-based, card-based game. Not a lot of depth, but it is primarily for kids and just went live. The dev team is talented and committed, so I expect big things.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning - PVE is WoWish and fairly generic, but the RVR combat is fun as are the public quests. Open grouping is a very nice feature.
~Ripper
Eve.
It's a love it or hate it type of game - it's very virtual world-ish - there's only one server, it doesn't tell you what to do - it goes out ofi t's way *not* tell you what to do. The story is largely written by the activities of the players. And there's no mandatory grinding. You can't grind skillpoints, and there's lots of passive ways to make money.
So, basicially, I guess i like Eve because I'm free to be whoever I want to be, not who the devs say I should be.
I guess my favorite MMO would be Atlantica Online, just right now, because as you go into the game, I mean raising your level, it keeps on surprising you as a gamer. And also, this is a turn based game in which you rarely see in an MMO.
People will badmouth me big time on this, but I can't help myself!
Neocron 1 was the best MMO I played past Phantasy Star Online on the dreamcast. First MMORPGFPS which actually kinda worked. Classes were simple yet highly customisable & all the game mechanics and locations were barely documented online & the players had to work everything out themselves.
Locations, monsters and music were all scary, & the factions we're simply guidelines to the playerbase on who to kill in PvP. Your best friend could be your enemy tomorrow & vise-versa, the players made the rules. If you died or got PKed you dropped an item which only a Hacker specialist could attempt to steal, putting himself at risk in a hacking mini-game in 30seconds which scaled with much harder difficulty if you tried to hack someone who had not killed anyone in PvP for a long time.
PvP & PvE had a cruel relationship. None of the seperation that goes on today in MMOs. The best PvE dungeons and leveling spots were located near clan Outposts which when owned by a Clan could use them as a teleport spot from anywhere in the world rather than traveling by foot & also a place to store armor & buy ammo. PvP would almost always be going on around or near outposts, making them hot dangerous areas, with you either worrying if someone was going to sneak up behind you, or planning an epic assualt with mates on the unsuspecting loiterers, levelers & defenders inside the outpost.
Tradeskillers we're Needed just to get by as your weapons, armor & vehicles would brake & the only way to repair was to get a repairing tradeskiller to do it for you. That's how you do Tradeskilling in an MMO!
Weapons were cool & had loads of choices & rares, with cool names such as Liberator, Ravager, Cursed Soul & Holy Lightning. You could either buy your gear from shops or get a researcher & constructor tradeskiller to make ones 4 times better for you, with a barter tradeskiller to buy components from NPCs cheaper, implanter to give you crazy implants that artificially increased your levels & skills with some negatives attatched, recycler to turn junk on monsters into ammunition & drugs, driver to drive a tank or assualt APC to an outpost fight or a buggy to drive a friend to the other side of the world.
Weapons which were constructed had a random chance of 0-5 slots which you could enhance with small boosts to the weapon making the difference between a hardcore & a softcore player (which you could still drop on death, increasing the risk factor). Also rare parts (10-15 parts needed to make a rare) could be farmed most effectivly Solo, but we're also effective in groups compensated by higher XP & money.
Bugs were common as hell with lots of crashes to desktop & warping but everyone put up with it in a cheerfull manner. "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" was the famous common phrase most players agreed with.
There is so much more I could talk about but it would be pages so I'll stop myself now. Anyone who played Neocron back 2001-2004 just wanna say never forget the awesome time we all had
QFE
AC was far and away the best of the early mmorpg's and EVE is far and way the best of the current crop.
Obviously, I favor skill based games over class based games. In fact, I consider prevalence of class based games (founded on the success of EQ, and the still later and greater success of WOW) to be the single greatest problem with current mmorpg's in that they are intrinsically almost impossible to balance (without turning them into clones in differnt skins) - doubly so when adding in PvP/PVE balance - and the root cause for the never-ending nerf cycles most games undergo.
My favourite game was Neocron (1) during the first 1 or 2 years after release
Reason:
- first-person-shooter-like interface, so fast fighting with pistols cannons, swords, rifles, magic-like psi force or vehicles, you were able to lose some equipment on death, but also get some item of your enemy.
- Clan and faction gameplay, capturing and defending outposts, good teamplay was important
- cooperative gameplay like monster bashing and pvp fighting was combined in many areas
- sandbox style. Clans had their own agenda and made politics. Factions too. So it was really an intense game with lots of love and hate
- characters were not forced to specify too much. Customized hybrid characters were possible and used successfully by people, who knew how to play them. Skill and tactics was important. Numbers didn't matter too much, so you where often able to win outnumbered, if you played better.
I had the most pvp fun in this game and the best group experience with my clan. It was not a power-leveling game, so you weren't forced to bash monsters all the time. If you were in the mood, you could just hang around with some mates, talk, tell jokes, wait for some trouble or provocate someone, have some nice pvp with lots of dead people afterwards like friends vs. others, clan vs. clan, faction vs. faction, just where you were and drink some virtual beer in a virtual pub afterwards.
If maybe a quarter of the server population loves you, but half of the server wants to kill you and the rest doesn't care then it doesn't get boring.
The MMORPGs that I've played so far ( what I enjoyed most comes 1st ):
Neocron (before it changed too much and population dropped), EVE Online (because of sandbox style), WoW (best PvE encounters), City of Heroes, Anarchy Online ... lots of stuff that I tried and that wasn't really original, because it was just powerleveling or just not fun at all.
Besides that I've also played Planetside for some time several years ago and it was also fun at that time, but lacked sandbox rpg features ofc.
Next game has to give me at least the freedom to do, what I like with my clan like it was in Neocron or EVE online. Never gonna play a simple monster-bash, powerlevel, collect-item MMORPG again that forces that playstyle on me, because there is not much else to do or because you can only compete, if you powerlevel all day long.
P.S.: Before I started with MMORPGs, I was playing some MUD, too. It was also a game, where social interaction was more important than powerleveling. We even went camping with ingame friends one summer. That's how I like it.
Best is a difficult thing to quantify, I would say my 'best' in terms of playing the longest have to be Eve Online and WOW.
EQ. Its probably going to be a while before players are ready to return to the substantive, acuity driven and aptitude involved game like EQ.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
Most people would say their first MMO was their best experience. I doubt any MMO will ever give me the same thrill or involvement that EQ did, so on some level, it will always be the best to me. If you want to base it on polish and intuitive gaming, then I'd say WOW. Overall, I'd have to say DAoC was my favorite game. Nothing compares to the huge 3 way RvR fights when the game was in its prime (pre-ToA).
MMOs Played: EQ 1&2, DAoC, SWG, Planetside, WoW, GW, CoX, DDO, EVE, Vanguard, TR
Playing: WAR
Awaiting 40k Online and wishing for Battletech Online
Ultima Online
The first MMO I played (age 13)
I played it until I was 20 years old, and still come back on and off.
Ultima Online is a given, still unmatched today.
But of the EverQuest generation of games. Dark Age of Camelot. Probably the most unique one out of all of them, and the most feature rich. It had all the features of EverQuest plus addicting and rewarding RvR.
They killed it with expansions though.
Bottom of my list? Probably WoW, because it didn't do anything new. Everything in it I went "I've done this before...in a better game...I think I'll go back to playing that."
Darkfall Travelogues!
Pre-Trammel UO. Was amazing the fear a red name would instil in a person. Ill also never forget ther first time i accidently looted a body in town and some do-good citizen promptly killed me so as to inform me that my actions were illegal. And how about the first time u melee'd a dragon!! That game at up my entire highschool life, and sucks cuz i know i wont like or play a game like that again. PS EA Games give it up and revert so you can get some subscribers back on.
After that only one as came close is DAoC. On WoW now to chill with bro and friends.
My two favorites of all time would have to be Phantasy Star Online, and Ragnarok Online. God those were good times. I remember grinding my ass off in Forest-2, looking/waiting for the day a Heaven's Punisher would drop; and RO's PvP/WoE was just crazy awsome when the GM's decided to join the fun.
DAOC
Ultima Online.
I still feel that first-person MMOs still havent matched the depth of play that UO had. I wonder if UO was a first person MMO if it would be as good...I dont think it would be.