Hey guys, I've played a few MMOs over the past few years, but nothing like what you guys have done, I'm sure. So what I want to do is list the ones I've played with what I like and didn't like and what I think I'm looking for and hopefully you guys can point me in the right direction of a great game for me.
World of Warcraft -
Likes:
- Leveling speed for an end game oriented MMO
- The raiding throughout most of the game's history, with the exception of the last few released plus Trial of the Crusader
- The massive amount of lore in the game
- Heirlooms for leveling alts quickly (end-game oriented MMOs only)
- The art style - a bit cartoony, but it worked I think
- The direction they took low-level questing in Cata, where you could go from 1-60 on 4 different classes without stepping into the same zones.
Dislikes:
- Dailies - by far the worst of the game lately. Spam dailies, spam 5 mans, spam more dailies...ugh
- The new model of hard modes that started with ICC (though I still loved that instance) where you can just set it to hard mode and suddenly the boss is harder, etc. I liked the exploration of raids that came once you defeated a new boss. Getting to see the next areas of Sunwell, Black Temple, Ulduar and the like was one of the best parts of beating a new boss for the first time. Now you're expected to already have killed normal modes of the bosses before you can even take on anything that resembles a challenge.
- Reputation grinds that are daily oriented which are also mandatory for a hardcore raider. Don't get me wrong, I like reputations and grinds, I just don't like daily ones when I'm already raiding 12 hours a week and work 8-5. One of the biggest offenders in MoP because I had to get these dailies done to even unlock another rep to unlock the 1 item I need for raiding. Grinds are fine, just let me sit down one weekend and knock a single whole rep out instead of a 3 week long session of 25 dailies every day.
Rift -
Likes:
- The Soul system where there's only 4 classes in the game, but each one has so many souls that you don't even have to roll an alt to get a completely different playstyle out of your class, with certain limitations, of course.
- Support roles, though a bit more like flat out DPS than I'd like in Rift, are a good addtion to MMOs I think.
- Instant adventures, if they added more variety to them, would be amazing, especially while leveling.
- The world is huge, and no flying mounts means you get to enjoy the environment (unless you take the Port everywhere).
Dislikes:
- So many different currencies can be a bit of a pain to keep track of (planarite plus all the different shards, etc)
- The way they do macros takes a lot of the skill out of maximizing DPS and rotations.
- The soul system can be a bit daunting to look at if you're new to the game, especially if you're new and trying to figure out rotations. The new presets help a ton with that, though.
- It felt like getting the gear to get into hard mode instances was nearly impossible since nobody ran normals anymore. I wound up just having to grind Plat to buy enough gear to get into hard modes.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Likes:
- Leveling was fun. The quests really felt innovative compared to my other MMO experiences (I'm not very experienced, but still).
- Companions. I loved the stories with them and the possibility of romancing them. Plus, having the crafting system tied to them was awesome as you could nearly always have companions out crafting for you without having to stop doing whatever else you were doing.
- Space missions were a good little distraction from the normal MMO activities, though they were a bit easy until the last one and they went so long without adding more. It was fun for when I got tired of questing for a bit or just needed a break.
- Huttball. Normally I hate PvP in MMOs and just prefer to go play League of Legends if I'm in the PvP mood, but Huttball has been the one exception in my entire MMO career.
- The cutscenes and decion making was fun in the game. I liked hearing the questgivers instead of reading the quest text all day.
- Class storylines. Probably one of my favorite parts of the whole game was rolling a new class just to see their story.
Dislikes:
- End game PvE was lacking a bit. Instances were too easy while raids were too buggy.
- Loading screens that took forever. Just to go from Fleet to a planet took my computer 5 minutes in just loading screens. I played with a friend who has a good PC and we'd be questing together and he'd still only get out of loading screens a few seconds faster than me.
- Having the order of planets for questing being so linear made rolling alts a bit boring, just because by the time you're on your 3rd alt (to see all those class stories from earlier), you're skipping through so much cutscene dialog just because you know that planet already. Having 2-3 options of planets for each level range would be awesome.
- The early forms of the auction house were horrible. I don't know if it's still bad, but it was nearly unusable for a while to me.
I've played EQ and EQ2, but I don't remember enough about them to makes lists for them. Tera was fun to play, just boring once you get to level cap.
So what I'm looking for, I think, is basically a game that could take WoW's raiding, Rift's class system, and SWTOR's leveling/questing experience. It's a bit long winded, but thanks.
Comments
Given that mix, the only thing I could suggest is Guild Wars 2, even though that doesn't fully mesh with your requirements.
Wildstar might entertain you, but it won't be out for awhile.
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Maybe what I should have said was I could care less about PvP and almost always pick PvE servers because of it. I like a leveling experience that has a strong story and continues with it end game, where it's more than "here, kill these random bad guys". I like quests that are more than always just kill x number of mobs or bring me y items. I'm fine with grinding, just prefer to spend my time killing if I'm doing it, not spending most of that time in front of npcs.
Anyway, a friend and I are deciding between Secret World and GW2 at the moment to try next. Do either of these seem to fit this at all?