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A casual MMO?
I've been a hardcore MMO player for years now, where endgame and raiding has dominated my hours spent in-game.
Now I'm definitely ready for a new experience with MMOs. I've never roleplayed for example, never really spent much time on filling up a house with stuff or perfecting that cooking skill, you know.
What MMOs are best for a more casual experience? What would you guys recommend? I've had a brief encounter with LotRO, but I'm a bit fed up with the whole Tolkien universe, and I'm sure there are MMOs out there that will seem "fresher" in a way. I guess crafting is very important, and the ability to avoid tough combat while gathering materials and such.
Comments
while gathering while avoiding overly difficult combat might not be possible, there are games where you can level your crafting w/o having to level your adventuring skills too much.
EQ2 has a solid crafting system, as does Vanguard.
Ryzom was always been an intense combo of crafting, harvesting, and roleplay.
FFXIV, believe it or not, has a pretty good crafting system and its not really too difficult to reach max adventuring level by just following the storyline quests, which you will need anyways in order to unlock certain aspects of gameplay. (mounts and the auction house for instance. its their way of trying to gate out goldspammers, though i dont think its worked all that well.)
Rift and GW2 both have decent crafting.
The Secret World while neither a crafting or primarily rp game is quite the different experience in comparison with most mmo's.
other than that i am hardpressed to think of a recently released mmo with solid crafting and/or roleplay.
p.s. be prepared for flamers, btw. quite a few forum trolls here love to point out to everyone how casual all current mmo's are. its best just to ignore them entirely if they do not offer any helpful suggestions.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Thanks for the reply @aspekx! Maybe I ought to check out GW2 then, I've already been quite curious about it.
I figured there would/will be some flaming, but I've already done the whole raid/endgame/grinding, and just wanted to see the other side of MMOs, that's all.
GW2 is probably the most casual friendly game I've ever played. You can beat that game by mashing your forehead on the keyboard.
The crafting in it is just awful though, so that is not a strong point. You can craft 'end game' gear and you can gather without any risk so it might still work for you. But the actual crafting is more or less paint by numbers MMORPG style. Not hard to get mats, nothing you craft has any value, nothing interesting at all about the crafting mechanics themselves etc.
The crafting system in Guild Wars 2 is primarily a way to level up--as it also levels your main experience level, not just separate crafting levels. Apart from ridiculous amounts of grinding for some endgame stuff, you'll level past nearly everything long before you can craft it unless you buy a ton of crafting materials off of the auction house. Actually, crafting in most AAA MMORPGs is really just something stupid to grind levels in. Still, Guild Wars 2 is somewhat different from the standard MMORPG formula.
If you're looking for a game that offers something totally different from what you're used to, then try a game that offers something totally different, not just a slight twist on the standard formula that you'll be 90% of the way to being sick of the day you pick it up. Uncharted Waters Online, A Tale in the Desert, and Puzzle Pirates go far off the beaten path. Puzzle Pirates is very casual-friendly, too, though the others are somewhat less so. ATITD has the best crafting system ever made, and by a wide margin.
Why not WoW? There's is a ton of activities for casuals, from pet battles to the Darkmoon Faire. There is always something going on. WoW is a dream come true for casual gameplay.
In order to level up most professions, you need a bunch of claws/fangs/totems/etc., and you don't get those from crafting nodes. I gained experience points a lot faster than I got enough of those crafting items to keep pace. Maybe if I had completely skipped everything except for killing mobs, my crafting levels could have kept pace.
Chef and jeweler are different and will let you level them more easily.