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MMO's - The first few hours/days
Mordeath
Member Posts: 131
I'm curious what people look for in an MMO's when they first start playing. Is it instant action (hey I already know how to move)? Is it immersion into the lore and story (whats your motivation)? I was discussing this with a buddy and it seems with so many MMO's how do you decide which ones you like, which you don't and which you will pay for based upon your initial impressions?
Comments
For me, its always the Lore/story. Once I figure out how to move around (get my bearings so to speak). My next move is to find out what my goal is, and how my character would go about accomplishing it. Immersion begins with the knowing the lore.
For me the general atmosphere is very important in the first seconds. What do you see around, what music plays if there's any. The realism. The world should be convincing. I need to feel i'm in a real breathing world and there's a story to begin.
For me is the seemless world.
After leveling at the beginers area in KO, my fren, whom i know in the game, teach me how to teleport out of it and give me a tour to the rest of the world.
Imagine my awe at the huge world, hundreds of players running around killing mobs, the elite mobs rooming around in the land, and telling myself one day i'll grow strong enough to beat it....
Solid!!!
RIP Orc Choppa
Do you look for the lore to be defined by a linear quest system (A to
, or more of a sandbox system (A or 
?
First thing I make my decision on is controls. If they don't feel intuitive, I usually stop playing almost immediately. Second thing I notice is community/environment. I uninstalled Allods after twenty minutes when it became clear that chat was completely useless because of the gold seller spam, and there was no easy to figure out way to ignore/report or even stop them. Usually I've already read up on the lore of the game before I downloaded it, so that factor has already been thought of.
There is alot that I look for and alot that kills the game play for me.
I want to see other players while I am grinding be it solo or group, I hate instanced area no players to be found outside of town crap.
I want free for all pvp because like life mmo's should be dangerous places, looking over my shoulder and slugging it out for a grind spot adds excitement to an otherwise boring task. Flagged pvp, battlefield pvp, arena based and even rvr just feals like scripted crap.
some mobs should just pwn, one thing i fondly remember about the early days of lineage 2 was running through death pass and trying my damndest to avoid the fettered souls that lined the road to ivory tower. It sucked to die for sure but sneaking past them was an accomplishment. I hate the whole you cant go here because that areas out of your level range shit
graphics are nice, i prefer to see the stunning world where everything looks fantastic but not at the cost of a seamless world, i hate having to load into an area just because i took ten steps into the forest, a dungeon load time is ok but out doors had better be seamless.
First issue, graphics. If the world seems ugly or silly to me, I'm out.
Second issue, the UI. It has to be intuitive. There's no reason for it not to be in 2010.
Third issue, mood. When I look around, listen to the music, and start moving about, it needs to be a world that I want to learn more about and experience.
Fourth issue, community. If I am met with a wall of gold spam and surrounded by a mob of complete idiots, that's a big negative.
So yes, I quit a LOT of games on day one.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Gameplay - ui, combat flow/mechanics, etc.
Lore - rather self explanatory really
Game design - Landscape, art design, etc.
Customer Service/Support - Customer interaction through forums or in game either through direct experience or viewing how others are treated, how launch issues are handled by the organization, etc.
Thos are the things I look at and matter to me when I try out a new mmorpg.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
wow. People look for radically different things in games during the first week or so.
Me:
graphics and Ascetics (this is a deal breaker for me, if I dont like how it looks I am out)
The world itself (how large is it, how much to explore)
Game mechanics depth (does it look like I could get lost in the numbers, create intresting character builds over time etc).
Not many games pass my test as it turns out.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
First few hours I'm looking for enjoyable activities.
I'm trying out Fallen Earth the last couple days and so far it's a big turnoff how "off" combat feels. Feels like diceroll-based FPS combat, which might've been alright (not great) for Fallout 3 but definitely isn't something I want to suffer through in a 100+ hour game. I always try to look past initial failures to try to see the eventual depth/complexity of a game, but each subsequent missed swing is another failure to belt a homerun out of the park -- and eventually I just give up on a game.
Presentation/graphics are another factor (secondary to gameplay, but important still.) And that's one of the things that keeps me playing Fallen Earth a bit more, since the feel of the world is solid so far, and the view distance is particularly nice. Combine that with giving me a horse to travel around on and fun objects to salvage in a post-apocalyptic world, and I'm willing to give the game a try for a bit longer.
The next few days of play will see if the systems are interesting enough to be worth experiencing longterm.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I totally agree with Axehilt. I've been trying Fallen Earth and the combat does seem off. I do like the openess of the world and things to do. To many MMO's don't have that large world feeling. I don't like to feel I am in a linear story in an MMO. I should be able to explore and see a large world.
1) combat system
2) prospects of pvp ahead
3) gfx
4) lore
10204) PvE