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Still waiting for my next online world.
Varny
Member Posts: 765
When I think MMO I think an online seamless world because my first true MMO was Star Wars Galaxies along side Planetside. I played other mmorpgs before that but I never liked any of them like Everquest was just so generic and when it launched it had the worst UI I'd ever seen it filled like the whole screen. Nothing clicked with me like Star Wars Galaxies did and other mmorpgs will always come along and try to copy it but they will never get it right.
What I loved about Star Wars Galaxies was all the little things from the acceleration on the running to having an alpha class that was hard to unlock so it made you feel special. I loved the skill system and I hate skill systems where you spend points but I just love all the boxes where you can mix and match professions. I loved the open seamless worlds and I loved how it had space aswel and I loved the setting which was Star Wars. It just got so much right and from now on if I can't plant my own house seamlessly into the ground then I just feel like something is missing. I loved how the world was setup with all the POI's and then massive areas to put your player cities into. Just wish they added more POIs and content as the game went on but instead they decided to break the game each patch so they focuse son fixing what they broke. I loved going to peoples vendors to buy stuff and seeing their decorated house.
Everything about Star Wars Galaxies was amazing and I just wish'd they added more content and fixed the buff issues the game had. Now I login to the game and I'm just depressed by the horrible UI, the poor animations and the over fast movement and the manual targetting system. Everything feels like a kids toy now rather than a complex mature game. I got so many friends into Star Wars Galaxies who were all attracted to one thing and that was the profession system. Without it noone is interested in the game because classes is just like WoW and they're fedup of that format.
I sit here waiting for my next MMO and it's just all zoned and instanced now and it's such a shame. Anything that does try to take from what Galaxies has done is some low budget title with horrible graphics and animations that put you off.
Come on Lucas Arts just give me a Pre CU server with all of the content of the current game and I'll be happy for life!
Comments
My first experience with an MMO was Star Wars Galaxies, as well. And because it was my first MMO, nothing could ever really live up to my expectations, I think. Since I quit playing the game years ago, I've had to lower some of my standards for what I should expect to get out of a game, but I've also had to raise a few of my expectations because of that experience as well. Since then, I've never quite found another MMO that could really draw me into it the way that one did, so I've moved on to other games, and I play those while waiting for something else that might have a little more potential to satisfy me reasonably enough.
Hmm. I mean, World of Warcraft wasn't really for me. City of Heroes seemed too tedious for my tastes. Age of Conan complimented my play-style too awkwardly. Pirates of the Burning Sea was too 'Meh.' Lord of the Rings Online is fun, but is really starting to get too 'grindy' for my liking. Considering all of this, I can only discern that I've gotten too picky or too spoiled a certain way in what I demand out of my games. Ha.
As long as I am having fun with any of it - it's all gravy, anyway.
I would have played Lotro if it felt like Lord of the Rings but it didn't. The UI puts me off and the character models are really bad and so are the animations. I really hate the classes because they just felt really bland and the combat system felt bad which didn't help. I think alot of problems are that horrible engine though and even if they fixed all my problems with the game it's too late now. I'm the sorta person where I have to be a day one collectors Edition Veteran or I'll never really get into it like a second home.
I know what you mean. It never really pulled me into the game-world that much, either. And it certainly didn't seem like anything too innovative, at least as far as MMOs go. The thing that really annoyed me the most, before the expansion, was seeing everyone running around in basically the same gear. It seemed to seriously lack diversity amongst characters. It's gotten a little better with the cosmetic item thing, but it is still lacking something there. The crafting system is pretty mediocre, too.
Yeh and the armour looks like it is painted onto their bodies rather than they're wearing it. It just looks very flat and weird.
What I really really miss about pre cu SWG (other then all the missing professions) was the sense of community we had. I knew pretty much everyone on my server because I relied on them for doctor buffs, slicing my weapon, buying a pet from a creature handler etc. Today's mmo's focus on level level level til you get to cap, then raid raid raid. They are solo until you are forced to raid.
SWG I could do anything I felt like, either roleplay, hang out in my guild's town and just BS with friends, grind for my jedi, do the themeparks etc. I just went through this thread today and almost started to cry.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?&topic_id=940299
Most of those pics are from pre cu, and as you can see it was a community, I never met so many friends in one game as that one. Sigh.
In my opinion, the character models don't look much better in DirectX 10, even on the highest graphics settings, but the game-world looks a little more alive with DX10 turned on, at the least. It would be interesting to see what the game would have looked like if they had gone with a different graphics style in the beginning.
To get back to the origional topic I think you might want to watch for STO. I think its pretty much the only sandboxy and persistant world MMO coming up. As I understand it Cryptic is going to have a sort of wide open game that doesnt have xp leveling and grinding. The IP is of course a good brand too, maybe something to look into there and see if they deliver. EVE is also very persistent but it takes a special kind of player really. Someone with a desire to learn a lot with their gaming... the calculator in the UI, and the constant need to use it, scares me personally but lots of peple love it. If its the Star War IP then of course TOR is coming out, its going to have the traditional elements of MMOs but is going to also be RPG and story immersion heavy. Not so sandboxy really as SWG so may not be your thing but its something I look forward to trying out. Lastly watch for CCP's release of WoD in a couple of years too, that should be a real doosey. Excellent IP and should be a wide open world as well but we will see, very little info is out there on this one.
Waiting for the same thing.
Star Wars Galaxies was in fact my first game I truly considered to be a MMORPG (my opinion), did play Meridian59/UO and have tried EQ several times but the game just didn't grab me the way I felt when I entered SWG for the first time in CB, did enjoy the 2 first games I mentioned but not as much as I enjoyed Star Wars Galaxies.
But if I am honost, this has to do with the fact that as a kid I saw the movies, collected near all toy's/figurines/books/comics, played with many friends with my toys aswell their toy's, so lets face it what would be more awesome to not play with toy's but come as close to a virtual reality of what I used to play/imagine with toy's, I could creat my own story's in the Star Wars Universe, the game was so much more then what we see today with most games being heavy combat oriented, still today the game exceeds most A-title MMORPG with it's feature's even if many of those feature's today are dumped down (Thanks NGE
)
And like OP said some indie devs do try and do come close and I bet those games would do great if released years ago, even might do good for a small population, but I don't want to play a MMORPG that kinda looks outdated, been a gamer for 30+ years (Pong my first) I truly want my game to be 50/50 on both graphic and gameplay, I just don't want to settle for less as sorry to say I've been there and see no reason why I should again. Of course I would love to see a indie dev/company do extremely well, but I fair they will not do that well, apart from a small niche, so that would not open the eye's for A-Title gamecompany's to change there so-called "winning" formula.
But since development is taking less time, we might see some open-world like MMORPG's where they show you there is more then to combat only in a game. But then again I am a gamer and play many genre of games and always felt that combat was the weakest thing in what ever MMORPG I have played in the past but it was everything else that I could not find in regular single/multiplayer that atracted me towards MMORPG's, it's a shame to me sometimes I am part of a niche......we us to be the majority, we no longer are..............
I'm hopeful about Earthrise. It's supposed to have one open world with no instances at all. Fast paced combat (for those that have seen the vids, they've completely reworked the combat since then) and open PvP with guild constructed bases are also supposed to be a big feature. It'll have in-depth crafting and a deep player driven economy. And the graphics look amazing.