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A grouptastic mmo while I wait for TERA
Hello! I'm looking for an mmorpg game that is rather up to date and community that is not driven to hate new players.
I just need a mmorpg game to pass some time until I will start playing TERA. I focus on good community, top priorities would be group based(forced) activites, and also a good crafting system is to my liking.
I don't mind too much about how the combat works, as long as the game feels smooth and well done. Graphics are not that important either, but it can't feel too cllunky or badly animated.
As for setting it isn't that important, I usually drift into fantasy settings because that's what I've grown up with mostly.
And if you were to invite me to play with you or some friends I will also take that into consideration! 
I am from Norway, so european times is favored (also for the least amount of lag).
Have at you!
Comments
While I woudln't say grouping is forced, in City of Heroes, you can play grouped 90% of the time easily and many people do. The game has so much focus on team buffs, debuffs, and crowd control (even more than healing really in my opinion) that it is more efficient to play grouped.
The game also allows you to adjust the difficulty on most missions so you can adjust it for your team to make stuff more or less challenging.
And last, it has a good system for allowing people of different levels to play together. You routinely see general posts saying, lf people for X levels X+
Crafting is VERY different from other games. They call it Invention Origin Enhancements. You actually have a much more complicated builds than any other game I've played (well maybe EVE)
There is a community developed program to help with builds called Mids Hero Planner.
In a nutshell you have a limited number of powers you can take and can add 5 slots to them as you choose.
You can modify the behavior of those powers by slotting to change for example, the damage, recharge time, accuracy, endurance (mana) use, healing, et.c. et.c. et.c. thru crafting.
On top of that you get small bonuses for using IO sets these crafted set bonuses stack on top of each other, and on top of your powers.
On top of that, you have Incarnate powers at level 50 that apply global bonuses.
On top of that you have the interaction with your team and how they've slotted things.
So thru crafting you can make characters ridiculously powered in different ways of your choosing, like to be an unstoppable healer, a crowd control specialist, a single target destroyer, an AoE master, or you can somewhat effectively be a jack of all trades.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
You pretty much just described Vanguard.
There is a bit of a population resurgance at the moment after the F2P announcement.
Yeah, I'd say Vanguard. The only issue you might find it having enough players around to group with, although it does seem to be more populated recently with the F2P announcement.
Thanks for the replies!
I will give Vanguard a try. I remember a while back a lot of people from Vanguard complained about their developers abandonment (no update or no care to improve the game). Going f2p may be for the better, to actually get the game out on the market again. As I did hear the game was pretty good, but the playerbase was too low and only somewhat populated at end-game (this was prior to the f2p announcement).
Thanks again, and I'm still open for suggestions
Have at you!
I logged back in a couple of weeks ago and made a new character in the Isle of Dawn starting zone. I was surprised (shocked?) how many players were running around and conversing in chat. It wasn't a ton, but it was way more than I'd seen on there in the other times I've played the game.
Vanguard is going F2P this summer, DDO is F2P now. You might want to try DDO in the mean time. I don't have a lot of the details since i haven't played since release, but grouping was essential back then, and the classic D&D feel is sort of there combined with traditional MMO combat/dungeon running.
"They essentially want to say 'Correlation proves Causation' when it's just not true." - Sovrath