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So many MMORPGs, not enough population
Xelloss265
Member Posts: 20
The name pretty much says it. I've played nearly every retail MMORPG out there and I have liked many of them, but after a few months after release their population disperses back to WoW or a free to play game. I don't spend money monthly on a game to play alone in. Since most of the loyal fanbase of these games stick around most of the grouping is done at final levels, since I have ALTitis so I usually never see these groups.
So my question to you is, which game has the highest population other then WoW?
Many of the pay to play MMORPGs have a high population but because its spread through so many servers you don't noticed when you play or its all end level toons. I hate making a new character on lets say LoTRO and only being able to group with 1 group my level. Then there is the when one leaves the rest of the group follows, when there is only one group to chose from this can be hazardous.
I see a lot of posts about Vanguard. I played this game at release and liked it, then moved on as I thought it was going to go under when Sony took over. I would consider going back to this game but the question still remains. I believe the issue with most new age MMORPGs is they are completely level based and if you haven't ben playing since launch or join late in the game then your out of luck when looking for a group. I hate power leveling and I like taking my time to explore each new lowbie zone since you really only get to play in them once.
So which game has the highest player base? Which am I most likely to find a group in at lower levels?
Comments
Well I am on the same boat as you when it comes to finding a new MMO with a good player base.
I purchased VG, AOC, and WAR on release and all of them flopped or are trying to grow. I have gone back to all three games in the past 1-2 months and they feel dead when it comes to playerbase. WAR and AOC still need a lot of work, and it wont be any time soon for it to be finished. VG has a great amount of content but I was unable to find a group for the first 35 levels. Wars population is low until the last tier, but its still a work in progress (needs a vast amount of work).
I am wanting to play a decent MMO but I dont want to go back to WOW and there does not seem to be anything left to try.
Whats really sad is WoW has nothing unique about it as opposed to other games. I really REALLY wish EQ2 could pull out of the gutter. Its PVE content was awesome, great weapons, classes, races, things to do. I remember back in the original EQ when MMORPGs were just developing. There were very few of them out there so each one had at least a couple thousand players on at all times and it was great. Everywhere you went in the original EQ it was populated, also the same with Asheron's Call. Problem is developers these days seem to focus on quantity instead of quality. They come out with 5 MMORPGs a year and none of them are good. You think they'd take WoW's hint and just make a good MMO. WoW had crappy expansions and even worse gameplay I'm not sure why people stuck with it after launch, maybe a combination of good marketing and cartoony graphics that didn't overwhelm the less technically inclined players.
Whatever the case I think it will be a while before anyone makes a MMORPG worth playing, until then see you in the failures.
You should try EVE online. I was playing there one year ago and I logged back in on trial a month ago and guess what? Nothing changed... population is still there. I think that this game is the only survivor among mmo games that really have depth in them.
I found eve to be boring, Sandbox games aside from Darkfall tend to be somewhat boring. I started playing with EQ and was waiting for Sony to release their new ruleset server (wishing it would be a new progression server) till they said it would be some free level 50 with 51 AA bullcrap (takes what 1 day to do?) . I was actually just about to resub back to EQ2 and retry it out with a few friends on Antonia Bayle. I will let you know how it works out.
Well from what I've read, Second Life has the second highest number of subscribers, but imo SL sucks.
You might try Vanguard again. I recently started playing several days ago, and there were tons of people on the Isle of Dawn (noob area). I've since migrated to Thestra, but there's still a lot of people around LFG.
LotRO has a decent size community, but you need to be on the Brandywine or Landroval servers. I have no problems finding groups there.
Really though, there won't be another game with as big a community as WoW. Not even UO or EQ in their heyday were as big. WoW's draw was it was easy to pick up and master, had cartoony graphics that appealed to a wide-range of people and ran on a lot of different machines, had a flexible, extendable UI that encouraged it's own sub-community, and gameplay was relatively stable most of the time.
WoW's gargantuan following and success attracted a lot of new developers to try to the next "big thing" which is why there are so many choices out there now. There are some really good alternatives to WoW, but even if another game with all of WoW's traits comes along, I don't think there'll ever be another 12+ million subs MMO. At least not any time soon.
In the end, all you really can do at the moment is find a game that you enjoy playing and that has a dedicated community that'll be around for a while.
Current: None
Played: WoW, CoX, SWG, LotRO, EVE, AoC, VG, CO, Ryzom, DF, WAR
Tried: Lineage2, Dofus, EQ2, CoS, FE, UO, Wurm, Wakfu
Future: The Repopulation, ArcheAge, Black Desert, EQN
For someone who likes rolling alot of alts you should probably steer clear of the pay to play games.
The why is simple: Investing money in a game raises your expectations of it.
It makes sense. Youre paying for a product, so why shouldnt you expect the most out of it?
Ive played PTP MMOs for years, starting with UO in 97, then to Asheron's Call, AC2....and I finally ended my PTP MMO career with Darkfall.
Unfortunately the PTP community fails to evolve, is very fickle due to the increased expectations, and ends up being pretty insular.
A good FTP MMO isnt hard to find. Over the last 2 years Ive tried a few, and out of the mix Perfect World has been good. Its successor Jade Dynasty (Zhu Xian Online) is also very good, if the asian version is any indicator.
World of Kungfu was nice, but they have no hacker protection and it shows....
Theres a Steam Punk MMO that may also be worth checking out.
Take it from a converted Pay to Play gamer gone Free to Play. I enjoy the games alot more since making my investments purely voluntary.
Give it a go.
Laudanum - Romance. Revenge. Revolution.
Crappy, petty people breed and raise crappy, petty kids.
There are many different games all over the global.It is all used to entertain the people like anything.
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The only games that meet your description are new games that are just released.
Every older game, including WoW, has few players at at lower levels. As the number of zones increases, the population becomes more thinly spread. In addition, in older games the bulk of the population is usually at or near maximum level.
You could try City of Heroes. A lot of people start new toons and casual groups at lower levels are common. Also City of Heroes has mechanics that allow people of different levels to group together for challenging non-powerleveling play. You can temporarily change your level up or down to fit in with the group.
EvE is actually not a game at all but it has no lvls and everyone is on the same server. That has at peek hours 40-45 thousand people playing, all on the same server.
Nothing beats this game when it comes to depth and complexity, but its an ELIT gamers game. Meaning only those that like a challenge vs those that like Theme park entertainment stick around.
Im guessing EvE might not be for you, as you look like a Theme Parks kinda person.
But if you want a challenge this game is for you!
But be warned its like going on a IRL trip to climb Mount Everest.... its not for the weak and meak.
Thanks for all the great advice everyone. Seems the good old days of new MMOs are over and all I can do now is go back to one and hope I can reach max level on my own.
Does anyone else here think a game that doesn't use a level system would be a good idea? It would eliminate a lot of the issues I am having. I can still think back to the good old days of EQ and Asheron's Call, where I could run for hours in any given direction and still see people questing or grinding. I think FFXI got it right when they allowed 1 character to play multiple classes and start from scratch, but I haven't seen a game like that since... FFXI...
As for the FTP games; I never found any of them up to par with pay to play. I hate the massive amount of bots you will find spamming away in any given area and there is still the problem of no lowbies. Most people who join those games have high level friends that power level them and if you ask to join their group you'll get a "f*** no".
With all things said and done, which do you think will be the next big MMO hit to watch out for? I was thinking the next Star Wars MMO, maybe another Final Fantasy if they ever continue with FFXI-2 or whatever its called.
EQ2 would be the only game with monthly fee i'd play, and only if it had a bigger population, hard to find anyone at any level anymore. Shame since it is pretty much superior to WoW in almost every way, except for some PvP features, EQ2>WoW.
Also, I swear to god WoW has some nictotine like affect to it, what about the game is actually attracting? Cartoony graphics, bad gameplay, no new content for new players, and people have killed them selves, literaly, over it. Much like a drug. World of WarCrack is more suiting to it.
Well I play EQ2 ... err I've been in EQ2 since the friends and family beta. I play on Antonia Bayle and have since it was up and running. Even these days there are level groups every day. Well from Fallen Gate / CBK level and up (early to mid 20's).
The real issue with EQ2 is whether they want your class or not. When they just want a healer... 3 archtypes are out of luck. When they just want a tank / healer 2 arch types are out of luck. Higher levels that changes to.... "chain or plate healer" ... "non chain healer" or "non plate healer" etc DPS most often seems to be melee dps wanted... (aka not casters). None of that is 100% all the time but it is often... which means even tho there are groups... there might not be groups for you.
Your next part...
"Also, I swear to god WoW has some nictotine like affect to it, what about the game is actually attracting? Cartoony graphics, bad gameplay, no new content for new players, and people have killed them selves, literaly, over it. Much like a drug. World of WarCrack is more suiting to it."
Is entirely your opinion and obviously you don't like WoW. Most people here say they don't like WoW... 2+ Million other americans have a different opinion (I don't like WoW but I can step back from the situation as well).
EverQuest was always called EverCrack back in the day... yet you use World of Warcrack like its a negative. If that is true then the origins of EQ2 are just as bad.
The first game I ever heard of anyone dying in was EverQuest... that being an american player. Not someone in China that despite the story might have been a sweatshop gold farmer.
You depeictation of WoW sounds a hell of a lot like EQ1 in its early days to be honest.
I'd go so far as to say that WoW is a better game than EQ2 now (I still won't play WoW.. I have to much time into EQ2 until a totally new game I like comes out). The key part of that statement being "now" ...
You know why EQ2 doesn't have the population it once had?
1) First they tried to make it more like WoW... well if the game your playing is made to be like WoW... You might as well play WoW.
2) After that drove people away we got new designers... which brought in changes which made about as much sense... well if you gave someone massive amounts of crack and told them to design a game or class changes... The effect has been the ever downward spiral of population.
If EQ2 had stayed true to its self... you would probably still be playing it (along with a lot of other people).
Guild Wars was my favorite game, but lack of players killed it for me. I just couldn't find a group any more. That pushed me back to CoH/CoV, but even there, groups can be hard to find on some servers, especially at low levels.
Nomatter how great it is in other respects, I'm not going to play a MMO in which I am always on my own.
They all try simple to create a game that could be the next top hit.. Like song arists or i dont know who...
And here comes about the likes and dislikes of the player.. If you play game and you like it doesnt even matter few problems you can pass it, coz it gives you happiness and that's good for you. Now.. people play games because their friends plays it and they dont know if that game that they spent hours they like it or not... but they do it because their friends do it..
So a good mmo that people play it will have his own population and doesnt matter if is it 10.000 people or 1 million..
but again the critiria is in your own head.. its wrong to play a game because his pop is like 10 million ok that could mean something but.. this is a taste that you have if you like the style.. the graphics and so on...
So... its in your own head.