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PvE/Group based MMO
MertzaSkertz
Member UncommonPosts: 161
Looking for an mmo with little to no pvp. I am primarily interested in the open world of the mmo rather than a whole bunch of instances. I do not mind a dungeon here and there, but I would prefer to be able to walk around in the same world everyone else is. This is primarily because I want to be questing/grinding and see someone along the way and we both decide to group up while we are trying to do quest that would be impossible otherwise.
I having looking at FFXIV and since it is only 15 dollars (and no monthly fee at the moment), I thought I would give it a try. However, I have heard very bad things about it, but that it has been updated for the better.
If there are any other games you guys can think of, just let me know. Or if you have opinions of FFXIV, I welcome those too.
Comments
My vote would go to Vanguard or LOTRO
I second the poster above. I tried FFXIV for about a month after launch and gave up. Perhaps it has gotten better now, but the last time I took a sneak peak I was the only one in the newbie areas. That will certaintly not be the case with LOTRO. Tons of people trying out the game. Vanguard or EQII. I think you could possibly try them for free for the next 45 days. Not sure how that works with trial accounts. I know Sony was offering 45 days free on all games, but I have old accounts for both games.
I would still wait a while longer on FFXIV. It still needs a ton of work but it's coming along...slooooowly.
I recommend Lotro and FFXI(nice deal if you buy the new all in one complete abysea package for $20, gives you all expansions and mini expansions. Tempted to get this myself for a nostalgic foray back into FFXI)
Both of these games are all about PVE. There is a small amount of PVP, but it's contained and you aren't forced into it at all in either game. Might as well not even consider them PVP type games at all. I guess you could add EQ2 to this list as well, although they have tried to make PVP a part of the game, but again, nothing forcing you into it and it's more of a second game than part of the overall game.
Now that I think of it, Vanguard is an awesome one as well. Personally, I wish it had more PVP, but oh well.
So, to recap:
Lotro
FFXI
EQ2
Vanguard
I have tried LOTRO before, it did not really catch my interest as it felt too much like WoW. What makes EQII and Vanguard different? Like what features do they offer?
Hmm LOTRO might be up your alley:
1. The pvp is marginal, located in specific regions you need never see in the whole of your little hobbit life and it's not good enough to make you want to go near it.
2. The world is utterly beautiful, huge, good sense of exploration and adventure in Tolkien-dom and random partying's-a-plenty.
3. It's better than FFXIV by a wide margin imo
4. Storyline quests thread all the way from the start to level cap and are enjoyable, interesting, gripping and these quests make much of the standard 'kill 10 of them for no particular reason' quests avoidable for the most part. Instances are good too but not necessary, in fact the xp from them is pretty gammy.
5. It's free to play and there's no sneaky cash shop waiting around the corner to trap you things you need to buy to win. Cash shop things are largely optional.
6. New large content updates every few months
7. Give it a bash you've nothing to lose but your furry footsies
I haven't played EQ2 in awhile, but Vanguard offers not only combat, but a very rich crafting system where you can build anything from armor to boats. Also it has the diplomacy card system which is another full fledged feature in which you can build up reputation which certain factions.
In vanguard do you ever find huge monster randomly in the wild that you need others to fight? I always found the rares and elites in WoW cool, but unfortunately there is no descent reward for those. Also, how long does it take to cap level? I am not a huge fan of end game.
Yes there are a lot actually just ask Guar if you can solo him or Nersawl or Bramblox or Vile Hakral
Good call, OP.
You seem to understand that the only way (now) to get that good old open world, friendly community, emersive, engaging, and adventuring essence, is to look for a PVE/Cooperative-group based MMO.
I STRONGLY suggest FFXI, as it is very polished, and very expansive, and pretty much is exactly what you described you are looking for. But, yes, it's a little old, so you'll have to do a little research on which server to join to make sure it's got an active community.
FFXIV, however, is not polished, and has many issues that take out the fun and the emersion. It has AMAZING graphics, though, but you seem like you're looking for more than that.
Sadly, FFXIV is a mixed bag, and among that mix of items, there are more spiders than candy.
It has much resemblance to FFXI, but as you may not have tried FFXI, it's hard to explain without context where they went wrong. In short, they tried to develop FFXIV to cater to a more casual crowd, and made core features of the game require a casual approach. some examples:
-Quest hubs: Very shallow and very nonsensical feature of the game that most of the players (when I played at launch) hated. This replaced the concept of exploring the world they created.
-Daily quests: yes... Guildleves, as they call them, are quests that you can do once every day (or 8 hrs or something) and you can do 6 different kinds. These reward the players with chunks of XP, making them a 'farmable' commodity instead of just grouping up and venturing out with friends, as FFXI and other core MMORPGs offered. Totally takes emersion out of the game as you log in, do your 6 quests, then you're locked out of the content they produce, and are left with not much else to do... (esp. because everyone else may still be doing their dailies from the quest hubs, and aren't willing to leave them to explore with you)
-No auction house: The game is HIGHLY craft-centric. The crafting is almost dauntingly complex and difficult to master, and the materials required are pretty intense, and equally complex to make. But crafting is where some of the best items come from, so it's definitely something that is utilized. Players can even level up as a gathering-type job/class, complete with gathering skills and abilities to go out and mine/chop wood/pick flowers/fish, etc. to provide for the crafters... BUT THERE'S NO AUCTION HOUSE! so it's not at all easy to find the materials you need without checking each and every player's personal shop. It's exhausting, trust me...
-rehashed landscape: They literally took the towns, zones, and scenery from FFXI and renamed them, bumped up the graphics, changed the music (to which I must say, at least the music is awesome) and made them less "open" and more "path" based, and called that New Content.
-Clunky combat: It's nice looking, and, like FFXI, they tried to bring something new to the table... it's just... not well thought out. Switching targets takes too long and too many steps involved. It's hard to tell what buffs/debuffs you have on. It's hard to tell what buffs/debuffs are on your targets. And some of the abilities that you mix from other jobs that you may have leveled don't really seem to be useful, making it almost pointless to cross train at all.
I could go on with the problems, but I don't want to bash the game completely... others have taken care of that for months. I just wanted to give you a clear understanding of why "i think" you would get much more gratification and enjoyment from FFXI over FFXIV
This is not a troll, flame, or anything else worth banning me over. It is simply my pure opinion, and I have a right to share it.
age of conan if you have a rig to enjoy it.
Hey, I have actually bought FFXI before the last expansion pack. It was not bad and I could definitely see the potential. However there were a few things that bothered me and made the game not as fun as it could be. Mainly the lack of direction. I do understand that FFXIV may of the same issue for me. Also I was afraid that once FFXIV took off, SE would stop supporting FFXI and that FFXIV would be the better decision in the long run.
well I felt FFXI had no direction. I entered the game world and I had no idea what to do. The city was so vast and there were so many npcs, I just didn't know where to start.
Group based? Vanguard or EverQuest progression server. Once you start getting to new game/pseudo MMOs like LotRO its mostly all soloing.
Darkfall Travelogues!
Hmm.. I'll start with EQ2. Although, EQ2's world is split into instanced zones, so you may lose the open world feel. It's worth trying at least. It's not everyone's cup of tea but you never know, you may like it. A few things EQ2 has over other games are:
Housing
Collections
Alternate Advancement system that is complimented by the Mentor system, allowing you to basically see lower level content with other players that you haven't seen and get rewarded for it.
Vanguard, on the other hand, has a very LARGE open world, with tons of little things here and there to explore. Class choices are just phenomenal and each class has little neat things along the leveling path that most games don't even come close to copying. It also has 3 progression paths, combat, diplomacy and crafting and the crafting is nice and developed. There is also housing and you can build boats/ships to sail the seas at mid to endgame.
I am probably not the best person to give advice about MMOs anyway since I'm utterly bored with everything I've played recently and there looks to be nothing whatsoever on the horizon that's gonna change the landscape in any dramatic way. I've tried pretty much every MMO game out there (even the impossible-to-fathom Korean stuff), I even gave a good dozen or two of the main ones another go in recent months, plus some recent ones I managed to get beta access and I can can summarise them ALL in a few basic steps
1. Create character/class/hairstyle all the while getting excited about entering a new and magically crafted world.
2. Launch into a cinematic where the camera flies ala helicopter over the starting area with nice music and sombre voice introducing the world and it's trouble
3. Get control of your character and see an NPC in front of you with a curious keyboard symbol over his head.
4. Click on NPC: 'Hello, my name is Jellam Teharrr, the world is in dire peril, I need a brave adventurer to go forth and secure me 8 boar tusks like a good chap and I'll give you some magical items to help you collect some more animal parts for my friends'
5. Repeat till end game.
6. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Is there an MMO in the last 5 years I'm not being fair to with this summary?
FFXI is one of those games where I actually read and reread the strategy guide as well as poured over forums filled with what to do in FFXI. I agree, it can be tough at first to figure out what to do but once you do, holy cow it seems to never stop. The game is just filled to the brim with content, and at just about every level, not just endgame. That's one of the reasons I wish games were more like FFXI but modernized. All that content.../sigh.
Thank you everyone, I think I will try EQII and Vanguard. If I don't like either of those, ill head over to FFXIV to see how it is.
Edit: I am still open to more suggestions though.