Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
The more casual MMo
executordp
Member Posts: 28
Any suggestions for a more casual MMO? I really like playing in a large, persistent world, but don't think I can keep up with live events every week and dedicate a million hours to play. Casual as in I can go and do a good mission with some people every few times a week, have some fun, etc. I'm not really interested in Guild Wars, as I wasn't a big Diablo/Dungeon Siege fan. I like to be able to travel around and meet new people, and explore and do different things. Thanks a lot. I know this is like my third post on finding a good one, but I think those things fit my criteria. Again:
- Casual gaming experience (i.e. jump into and have fun once in awhile)
- Large persistent world with various things to do
- friendly community to easily group with.
Thanks again! You may just be saving a life...
Comments
Without question, World of Warcraft.
i would recommend Eternal Lands, its a pretty casual game, its a completely free game (its in beta, but dont take that to mean its not good) and you dont ever have to worry about any of the best players killing you unless you go into certain areas that are designed for PK combat, just stay on the maps that do not allow PK The moderators are nice (there was one from before that some people disliked, she's gone now) and host events for anyone who's interested (quizzes with prizes for people who win, treasure hunts, stuff like that) There is complete character development control, you dont choose "knight" or "wizard" or "assassin" or anything like a profession. You can always do new things, there are lots of different things you can specialize in, fighting, magic, summoning, harvesting, alchemy, or all of them if you want. Most of the people are nice (there are of course the people who spend their time insulting people) and there is usually at least one mod at the game's start point waiting for newbies to ask questions. You can play the game in a window instead of full-screen, which is more convenient at times, if you need to be in another window. Its basically a somewhat slow paced game with less pressure to be good, if you're interested go to eternal-lands.com
To beat this over a dead horse,
with all that I've asked for in mind, what would you say about those compared to what I already have easy access to, ones that I have?
City of Heroes
Matrix
FFXI
EVE
Star Wars
Just wanna stick to one, with those prerequisites. Ok, that's it! I swear!
If you can run CoH. FFXI, and SWG well you will be able to run WoW just fine.
Never played SWG, but I would say that WoW fits the requirements given in the OP much better than any of the games that you have listed. CoH is also very condusive to short bursts of play. It can be easier to find a group in CoH (or much harder) than in WoW depending on the character type you choose. However, I found that there is a lot more to do in WoW overall than in CoH. In CoH there is no crafting, there are no auctions, there is barely any loot to collect, and PvP is currently quite limited (but that will of course change very soon). If you are opposed to WoW, and you've already tried CoH, maybe go for Guild Wars? It has a slightly more demanding engine, might not run well of you have an older machine.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
WoW tick all your boxes
WoW,
Except I disagree with everyone saying it applies to all three. I play the game and the community frankly sucks. Its good for soloing, grouping is..ok.
FFXI, the community is incredible..IF you take the time to use the translator. Otherwise you end up being just another smacktard NA player running around crying and complaining that all your groups suck and you cant understand anyone..*references a recent and quite ignorant post*
EQ..its community is pretty good, and the grind isnt too bad. If you havent played it then it can be quite enjoyable.
Guildwars, good for casual play..actually its Great for casual play. However after the beta I have serious reservations as to the quality of its community.
EQ2 has about one of the best communities out, however honestly the game is not geared in any respect to the casual player.
WoW ticks the two first
. The 3rd one isnt close and never will 
.
gamertag - Swaffle House
WoW meets the first two requirements easily. You come a lot closer to finding a good community on the RP servers, I found after some experimentation, even if you don't join a guild. If you want to go against the numbers, try Saga of Ryzom, which meets all three of your requirements and has the best user community I've ever seen.
Good luck!
Connaugh
Connaugh
Now playing: WoW
Played: EQ, DAoC, Eve, SWG, Shadowbane, AO, SoR
Eve-online is the most casual game out there.
Ok, here's an update. I'm down to choosing between FF XI, SWG, and WOW. I'm not sure about FFXI, as I hear that you need to put a LOT of time into it, but I like the idea of the world being insanely large.
SWG intrigues me, but I hear it is also very time consuming. But I like the idea of how much content there is, from being able to join the Empire to flying a ship full of illegal stuff and whatnot. Actually, EVE sounded good too, but it also sounds very, very complex and probably quite time consuming.
WOW sounds like a good bet, since everyone's saying that it's quite the casual-guy MMO, however I wanna know WHY so many people dislike it soo much.
So close to playing, I can taste it. So ridiculous how much time I'm putting into researching what may hold my attention without paying for them all.
Why peoples dislike WoW?
Most of the peoples that dislike WoW usually dislike it for 1 of those reasons:
- Very little new stuff, all working formulae of existing games. Althought it usually have less flaws and mistakes, you will see very little that can be labeled as innovatives. (so it would be a great game for someone that is new to the MMORPG, as it more or less act as an history of the MMORPG game, and of course a history class is much faster then doing the history) If you never play any MMORPG, WoW would be a MUST IMO, not because it is the best, no, just because it will show you very nicely and fast what are thoses games in general. Someone that play any MMORPG should think twice before trying it...
- Fast progression and lack of penalties they find significants, serverswide.
- Same mistakes as EQ toward gameplays, however done in a tutorial illusional ways, more geared on the solo side, yet if you move the system on the chart, it remain with all it failures, it just strike harders on differents spots(grouping and raiding are less favorised then in EQ).
- Blizzard work at 3 speed: Slow, slower, slowest.
- Lag & customer service.
Personnally I would recommend City of Heroes. It is not casual friendly at the expense of the others aspects, however it is logical and you will always be doing well and progressing adequately...you can group with friends no matter of levels with the sidekick or exemplar. CoH grind is much harder then WoW, the battles are much fasters. CoH have many flaws, but most of those flaws affect level 45+, so you can have a blast before noticing them.
FFXI is trash IMO, since I was never even able to play it an afternoon and I have buy it at release, WoW CS is better then that. SWG is prolly still a nice game...but I would not be in a rush to go beta test their new CU.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
That's a very good point with SWG. I've come to terms that perhaps I'll wait for the summer, after the expansion and the bugs are worked out before I consider.
Currently, I'm under my 30 day trial for CoH. As fun as it is, I can really tell that I'm going to get bored in a bit. There seems to be very little to it. It's a giant city in which all you do are missions. No quests for special items or anything, just mission after mission. I do really like the community, though. Really easy to find a group and go fight evil. But it just seems that it was getting repetetive and I only got to level 12. My account expires in 3 days, so I'm probalby going to discontinue. I see a real prospect in the game when City of Villains comes out. Sounds like it'll liven the game up a bit.
I think you may be right about FFXI. I've not tried it yet, but many say it's a huge grouping requirement, and I don't have a million years to stand around waiting for a group to form to fight off mobs.
As for Wow. Well. I don't really know. I mean, to be perfectly honest, I've not really played an MMO for more than a month. That is to say, I've not played an MMO long enough to actually ascend into levels beyond 20 and such. So, in a sense, I don't really know if I'm a 'qualified' MMO player.. I mean, sure I've played MMOs, but I haven't really stuck with one. And that's the issue here. I want to find an MMO that I can try to stick with. The problem is, my attention seems to wander and I end up saying, ah, but maybe this one is better, or I just want to try this other one. I've not stuck with an MMO to get its full value out of it. So, I you say that WoW would be a good recomendation to a MMO newbie, would you say that would apply to me?
SWG you'll get annoyed of the Devs in a year or less EvE is a good game but somtimes it can seempoint less cuase you just click a few buttons and you've just cossed the galaxey.
If you want a good game its gotta be a game that you can play for 30 mins and your a decent player that way it doesn't waste your real life and you don't have to spend 1 month playing day and night so you can be as good as your friends
Frankly i think everyone will eventually say a game sux combat wise if its not twicthed base.
Not some stupid skill box that says oh now i can shoot while jumping
The thing I love most about WOW is that I feel I can accomplish something even if I only can play for 15 minutes or so...
Seemed to me that in EQ2 it took me just as long to run across Antonica (or to craft myself a couple of creamed black coffies)...
Im sorry but i dont consider Wow to be casual at all, maybe until around lvl 20.
Finding a group in wow can be hard specially since the lvling curve is so fast you will find people out lvl or you outlvl them.
WOW is just a huge repetition. Do x instance 20 times to get 1 pice of armor. But i gotta say that the lore in the game is ok and there is a million of quest to do.
i would look into GW, or coh for games that are casual.
Currently playing:
WoW
GW
Games im looking foward to:
ZerA
Granado Espada
My Zera Blog:
http://www.pcorajr.com
If you really want something casual and still MMO, then Guild Wars is definitely the best one followed by WoW. SWG might be more casual than EQ but that is like saying "my car is cheaper than a Ferrari". Crafters in SWG need time and patience to find all the resources they need, plus making factory runs to craft components in large numbers. I tried to play this facet of the game casual but you need an hour or more a day to actually enjoy it.
Don't know about how pure combat classes fare in the casual department but since the upgrade to the combat system it looks like it has been made quite a bit harder to solo in SWG. Galaxies is a great game but it is best played devotedly and not casual.
WoW is really the most casual standard MMORPG out there. If you can live with the lag they still have there (probably getting sorted out some time later this year) and with the lack of "casual" content for the endgame, I would reccomend it.
Guild Wars is the most casual MMO but it doesn't have a persistant world outside the towns and endgame is mostly pvp (although there are highlevel areas that really need a very skillful team and are rewarding even to maxed level chars)
Actually I would simply test GW and WoW. Test WoW for the free month and get GW since it doesn't charge any fee at all. I guess none of those two games will give you the "oh damn I need to log in to take care of my account daily", which is really what many of the older MMORPGS do.
WoW fits your needs best too I would say. Played most of the games mentioned here, WoW by far fits it better.
As for easy to find groups, that is inherently difficult to find in a casual based MMO. The more casual based it is, the more stuff you will be able to do alone, since casual players don't have time to sit around LFG. The more hardcore it is, the more it will require groups, and therefore the more people you will find LFG. Thus, hardcore games are easier to group in because more players are forced to group. Casual games tend to have more people preferring to solo, and thus makes it harder to find groups.
Habit is not to be flung out the window by any man, but coaxed down the stairs one step at a time. - Mark Twain
WoW fits all 3 as long as you ignore the general fourms and dont play on a PvP server.
Let me give you my view of casual gamer (1h max a day). I had the same issue as you when I started. I player AO for a while, but got tired of moving so slowly (log in, do one mission, log out, and after 1 week be able to use another pauldron).
I've been playing Eve, and although you can definitely get immersed 8 hours a day in the universe, it's great for casual gamer for the following reasons:
- Offline experience: You can manage your character progression by logging in 5 minutes before you go to bed and 5 minutes in the morning if you don't have time that day. So you can keep planning long-term and enjoy a lot the time when you are able to finally log in for a few hours.
- Great community: You can be part of a large corp, and you will get a bunch of friendly people to answer questions, or you can be part of a small corp, and you will get attention from a small group of equally friendly people.
- Specialization: Since the game can be specialized in so many ways, you can become an expert of something as a casual gamer as well (agent missions and trading for me). Even by playing as little as I do, I think I've become fairly smart at trading. I will never be as rich or generally knowledgeable as the other veterans, but I have my niche of expertise.
- Market: The market system is great, because it allows casual gamers to take long positions that hardcore gamers can't really afford to take because it would freeze their capital.
That's my view. I'm not a big MMO connaisseur, so I don't want to spoil the other games. What I can tell you is: casually playing Eve can be a lot of fun !
CoH might be good. But like people keep on saying WoW fits your description perfectly.
Well, I didn't really mind the little management type things in Galaxies, like checking harvesters, buying materials to build things and all that lot. I think what really made me lose my interest was when I found a holocron, and decided to drop my profession I'd been working hard on to become a class I didn't really want to become in the first place. I'd play tedious hours doing something I didn't want to do, and eventually I quit because it became a chore. I know the jedi quest is much different now, so I'd be willing to try it. But I'll probably play later with the expansions.
Actually, I'm probably just going to open up WoW and play it for the free month. If I really don't like it by then, then I'll go to SWG.
I really would try FFXI, but I'm not because the guy who sold it to me on ebay didn't give me his account password, so I feel kinda ripped off. I don't feel like buying another copy of FFXI after that.
I'll tell you what I think of it later on. Thanks everyone! It's been...difficult.