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MMORPG for couple with a life?
HankyTryker
Member Posts: 18
Hi, all. I'm trying to figure out the best MMORPG for people who a) want to play online with their spouse, b) have limited playtime, and c) need to afk occasionally to take care of kids.
I'm looking around at what to play next and wanted to get your opinions and reasoning.
My wife and I enjoy very much playing online together. We both have to deal with work, commutes, household maintenance, and still make time to spend with our son. I'm lucky to have a lady who also likes to relax through playing computer games. We played EQ quite a bit together (about 3 years), but as our child grew from baby to toddler we played less to spend time doing kid things and needed to afk more often. This doesn't exactly mesh well with high-end EQ raiding... We're now playing Saga of Ryzom and enjoying it, but I'm wondering what else might be out there that would fit our needs and be fun.
We want something that lets us experience most of the game without spending more time than we have available; that offers combat, crafting, and questing; is not full PvP (we're there to de-stress, heh); and would support duoing at least a good bit of the time. Also, we don't want to get into something again where you are obligated for 3-5 hours at a time, expected to be on almost every night, and screw over your friends if you are tired and need to head to bed before 1 AM.
Any suggestions? Surely there are quite a few gamers in our situation, so we thought we would ask their advice.
Thanks,
Hanky
Hanky
Tryker Warrior Mage
Wildermeer
Comments
Well I mean if your desperate I would say World Of Warcraft as you can solo through the whole game easily. Im not a huge fan of it though.
You might try WoW... it's very casual friendly, up until the later levels at least.
And there are ways to play in the later levels that are still casual friendly. (Buying items off of the auction house instead of doing instances for hours at a time to try to get them.)
It's very good for duoing. But the main thing is, you can log on, play for 2-3 hours and get a level or two, while doing 3-5 quests throughout that time and having a blast.
Just my 2c.
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Looking forward (cautiously) to: Age of Conan, Dark Solstice, Armada Online.
Will soon try: Guild Wars
Overall: Amazed and bewhildered at the current sad state of the artform of gaming.
World of Warcraft seems to be the perfect choice for you. It's very user friendly and easy to pick up, you can start doing quests together right away with your spouse (Quests can be completed together with party members) and progress in the same pace as your spouse. You don't ever have to wonder what there is to do next as the game takes you by the hand and shows you what direction to go but there is also enough challenge to make your goals fun to accomplish.
You might try the AC2 free trial. The game is more soloable than EQ, and a 2 person group of the right classes can do most of the quests in the game. It's easier to get some progress in small periods of play because travel is usually pretty fast, and you don't usually have to spend lots of time forming large, unwieldy groups. Some of the high level quests require big groups, but those are usually scheduled by the largest guilds.
Some good class combinations might be the lugian berzerker and the human defender. The berzerker would deal the heavy damage while the defender absorbs the damage. You could also try the tumerok healer and lugian juggernaut. The healer would keep the juggernaut alive, while the juggernaut would deal a balance between damage and defense.
Eve Online: This is a long term game. The players who have been there since Beta, are still learning, creating and crafting. Might be a game of choice, if not, we can try another.
EQ2: Graphics are superb. Soloing now is an option, and grouping is still a great feature as well. The characters look superb, and the entire world is set up nicely.
WoW: Graphics are unique, very likable and lush with color. The characters are unique, and the game is friendly to those new to the Genre. Fast paced as well, if thats to your liking.
Hope this helps out, keep us informed
KillerTwinkie - That one guy who used to mod mmorpg.com's forums.
i will join in and say myself too that WoW seems the right decision.
I've a wife too that plays (but no kids at the moment) and we are having a blast. You do not need to log in for hours to accomplish something as many quests, even the most epic ones are breaked down in small portions easily accomplished in 1-2 hours or even less.
The game is easy to learn but hard to master, so it will give you new things and tactics for quite a while before you get used to it.
Duoing is great in WoW and actually i think is the best way to experience the game when not in instances. Maybe blizzard tought to all the gamers couples out there? Dunno but me and my wife, both 35 druids can pack quite the punch.
Also, do not worry much about class selection. You do not HAVE to get a healer if nobody wants to play such a class, you can get along pretty well without if needs by with the crafting aspects.
WoW has plenty to do that do not involve combat including gathering of resources and many different tradeskill professions that will be useful from the get go too.
WoW has PvP but is limited. if you choose a PvE or RP server, you can PvP basically when you want. There are sill raids on enemy cities and what not, action is pretty intense, but if you just do not want to be part of it, simply do not attack the enemies or heal the people fighting in the melee and you cannot be touched. Sometimes the enemies will kill some NPC you need, but they spawn back pretty fast, so no problem there either. You might even get to like it and try your hands at PvP sometime ehehe.
Have a nice day
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Thanks for all of the replies!
I expected WoW to be suggested because of its popularity, but I was glad to see sound reasoning behind each recommendation. We'll check into AC2 and EQ2 as well. I'm afraid Eve is out, since my wife wants to develop and control a body rather than fight a spaceship. Good game, though.
If there are any other recommendations out there, we would appreciate hearing them.
Thanks again,
Hanky
Hanky
Tryker Warrior Mage
Wildermeer
--Ha, Pwned--
Pvp = godliness
Playing: WoW
Waiting on: Gods and Heroes
I actuslly run into alot of couples in WoW. Been a guild run by a couple too. I'd say WoW.
We are not suggesting it because is the most popular or because it is the best MMORPG out there.
In fact I don't like it at all, but I will suggest WoW because from your description, that s what you will be able to play.
Casual, easy, fun = WoW.......................simple
Hey there...
Will chime in here as one-half of a husband-wife duo myself.
The single game we have found to fit our needs, which are remarkably identical to yours (given that I work a full time job, we own a house, and have 3 kids from ages 4 to 9 to tend to), is City of Heroes. As long as the crafting aspect of your requirements is something you can do without, the game if absolutely made for couples.
The strenghts of the game lie in several aspects. First, it's as casual as they come. First off, getting a team going in the game is easier than any other game. There is a global LFG/search capability, and because you're a superhero with super travel powers (post level 14, which is about 5 hrs of time max), you can get anywhere in the game in 5 mins flat. There's nothing like taking off like Superman or jumping around the city 3 blocks at a time going from point A to point B. Forget the horses or griffins...they're so 'done'.
Second, and critical to those in our shoes, is the fact that missions scale to the number of people in your group. Only you and the wife? Your missions will be challenging ... there is even a difficulty slider in case you want to make them more challenging. Get into a group of 8 people? It will still be challenging...actually downright hectic.
Speaking of missions...you will never need to "camp" in the game either. Don't know about you, but that bugs the bejesus out of me. With CoH, you will have missions from level 1 to 50 if you like.
Finally...did I mention you get to be a super hero?
If you're wife is anything like mine, she'll have as much fun MAKING her toon as playing her toon. The character customization is second to none, period. And with the differences between the types of characters, you'll find yourself an alt-a-holic with the rest of us soon enough.
Hope that gives you something to think about aside from the popular "WoW" answer.
Oh, on an aside, do NOT, repeat NOT play EQ2. As soon as you get over the initial "ooooo" of the game, it's the most time intensive game I have ever played. Just getting started on anything takes 30 minutes.
Guild Wars is by far the best casual game for you... only problem is, it doesn't release until the 28th of this month. Which is... 6 more days.
It's made for casual gamers, it is designed around the idea of only playing 10mins to an hour and having fun in that amount of time. I would reccommend it, I played WoW, Saga of Ryzom, Eve, etc... and most definately Guild Wars is the best by a long hall. The only problem is since it's not released I can't comment on content in the end game and how long it'll be fun for*
Everything is instanced, so if you need to go afk no one's going to come up behind you and pk you... and there's plenty of "waiting" rooms to find people to easily party with incase your wife's not home, so you don't really need to "know" anyone.
Also, the system is just generally super easy to figure out and easy to navigate. The game is... superb in just about every way.
Wife and I played AC2 for quite a while. We also played UO for 4 years together but these days people seem turned off by te grafix so I wont recomend it unless your really 100% into gameplay.
I havnt been able to get her into WoW, SWG or EQ2, she just doesnt like em.
From your description I think AC2 could be a good fit for you.
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"MMOs, for people that like think chatting is like a skill or something, rotflol"
http://purepwnage.com
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"Far away across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees. To hear the softly spoken magic spell" Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
Hmmm... SWG I find is pretty easy to AFK in and you can advance fairly well even if you don't play a lot. Only exception to the AFK easily is space combat. Though you can autopilit to a station and afk if you need to fairly easily.
Pretty nice game for casual players. Especially if you liked UO. The two are very similar in many ways, though SWG is better.
Hmmm...
Only other one I know of that is really condusive to casual play is WoW but I don't know how readily you can AFK safely in it.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Uhh
Guild Wars is designed purely for PVP
you cannot AFK in PVP when baby aggro happens unless you don't mind getting ganked while idle.
Just something to consider when suggesting a game that someone wants to be able to AFK in... Pure PVP is a bad thing, which is why I didn't recommend planetside.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Uhh
Guild Wars is designed purely for PVP
you cannot AFK in PVP when baby aggro happens unless you don't mind getting ganked while idle.
Just something to consider when suggesting a game that someone wants to be able to AFK in... Pure PVP is a bad thing, which is why I didn't recommend planetside.
I beg to differ on the point of this game being designed entirely for PvP. I will admit that PvP is one of the stronger points of the game, but I also would like to point out that of the last 60 or so hours logged in GW, (2 or 3 beta weekend events there), less than 2 hours total were spent in PvP. There is a lot to do in just doing quests and missions in the RP part, especially if you team with someone that has different quests to complete than you.
Of course, you can work the same kinds of builds for your characters, and work quests simultaneously, to speed the game a bit, but when working with completely different characters as a group, (and the beginning area has a group limit of only 2 players), then you will be spending a lot of time working on each other's quests. this will make it a little more interesting and time consuming overall as far as character advancement, but it also adds to the fun by allowing you to work with your partner simply for the sake of working together.
Crafting is not a strong point, at least not being able to craft items yourself, but having armors and such crafter specifially to your character is not too hard to accomplish.
AS for PvP, if you wanted to just pop in for a few arena battles, they are usually relatively quick, unless going for things like the Tomb of Primeval Kings, which can be a bit more drawn out.
Someone suggested earlier to try to join a guild in whatever you decided to go with, and I would make the same suggestion if you decided to go with this game. I have seen postings by several different guilds that are not soley interested int he guild ladder rankings, and therefore would not be very demanding on being involved in a lot of PvP combat, and I am currently entertaining the thought of creating a guild at release that will start off with a few members that are in similar situations. (not necessarily couples playing together, but with families and responsibilities outside the gaming world that require times of being AFK and/or entirely offline. The biggest advantage to joining a guild is being able to find others to work with you on the missions and areas that will require more than just 2 players and various henchmen. (henchmen have been improved, but are still lacking in a lot of the tactical capabilities of real players).
As to any of the other games mentioned, I cannot honestly offer any opinion on those, as I have never played them myself.
Oh, there is one more advantage to GW, in that there is no monthly subscription fee. So, if you were to have something that kept you from being online for a long period of time, there is no worry of wasting money on the subscription while not online. this also means that there is no really large commitment to the game itself, as you can play fully at your own leisure.
Oh well. this is just a suggestion, and I guess you can say my opinion is a bit biased toward Guild Wars because of my limited experience outside of that game, but you never know. If you were to try it out, you might find it just what you were looking for.
I'll recommend Guildwars PvE to play casually because while on a mission you can simply just kill a group and afk for as long as you like unless you are on some sort of timed mission. Or if its a mission where you are chased by a massive army of Charr then you have to keep constant.