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Let's summarize what is the best option for the MMORPG player right now.
Ok, first reality check.
#1 Tons of MMORPG's
#2 Tons of players scattered through most of them.
#3 I understand that everyone has his own view of what "fun" can be.
BUT, as a someone who is unbiased when it comes to what type of game I would play (pure/mixed sandbox/themepark, open world pvp or just pve, fantasy/sci-fi, cartonish/anime, tactical/fast pased combat, gear/skill dependant, 2d/3d graphics, P2W/F2P/B2P/P2P) I want together with this community to help each other and determine what is the best OPTION/CHOICE the MMORPG player has today.
From waiting on Wildstar, WOW:WOD or something else like ArcheAge, etc it's naturally extremely harder to predict, determine if going on blind with untested, new product is the best possible decision, but at the end I know any decision is better than continue to be without any MMORPG until Everquest 3, Star Citizen and so on in 2015 and beyond.
So, how do we determine what is the best MMORPG choice for the MMORPG player right now? Well from things like the value it offers for the $ you'll be spending. Reality is the genre is clearly for many not in a great shape right now, but it doesn't mean that it completely sucks either. Then we got a lot of MMORPG's out there who are under the radar. MMORPG's that simply do not get the publicity, word of mouth etc for us to know how their progress is or what they are doing. Xsyon, Star Trek and a lot of indie MMORPG's that do not have the funds or background to have a strong following.
Security, longlivity, endgame design features/speed and quality of content delivered are some of the crucial things in my opinion for choosing a MMORPG. Bottom line is we all want to be busy playing the game. So, the only way I see us getting as much input and details on each MMORPG out there is from the community to provide us with as much opinions from their own experiences about what they've played so we can finally determine what are at least the top 3 best choices the MMORPG player can make right now until 2015+
Since 11th January, 2011 I've not spent $ on a new MMORPG (sad I know) but I will do my part and provide as much details to help this thread with the MMORPG's I've been involved through the last 3-5 years and their pros and cons (in my opinion of course)
MMORPG's played (for extensive period) WOW, DCUO
I enjoyed WOW because the PvP requires high skill cap. Skill cap is higher than gear, but gear is as important and being knowledgable how to gear properly. It had ranking system and it had rated battlegrounds on top. The system also rewards players with Gladiator titles at the end of a season for being ranked among the top % and other titles. It promotes socializing with others which can be a positive or negative thing. Yes, it sucks depend on others to compete, but being needed/valued has its own merits as well.
Obvioslly, PvP is a side feature in the game, since it always remains the same. So, we are paying for CONTENT, which is the PvE, raiding, dungeons etc. PvE / raiding in WOW is one of its strongest features. Players consistently have to be aware and prepared when coming to a raid. Guild progression does exist and just like PvP, guilds compete with other guilds at faster boss kills. Of course, the better the guild is, the better the chance it has to attract better/consistent players. At the end the most successful raiders get rewarded occasionally with unique mounts that often are locked during a time frame and afterwards they have extreme low chance to drop. Titles, used to be like this, not sure about now.
Now the cons obvioslly the game has botting problem. But bots can be helpful since they drop the prices on resources and make everything cheaper to craft. There is abuse and win trading in the MMR (ranking) of PvP. But it is not that harmful since there is still a lot of space for truly skilled played to get their gladiator titles since more participants, more titles available.
I mainly quit the game because of Path of Exile. I enjoyed it a lot during the first 2 months since the league came. I love making my own builds and perma death combined with totally free to play. I felt entertained enough to not continue my sub with WOW, which obvioslly has lost my trust with how it charges $40 expansion fees every 2 years, but it delivers new dungeons/raids every year, which is way too long to keep my interest in the game. There is no doubt though if WOW was free to play I would see myself playing it just the PvP.
For those who do not know Path of Exile has leagues/seasons that last 4 months and then reset. Unfortunately, I didn't feel the grinding process that's in place rewarding enough to commit myself for another 2 months if I've lost the opportuny to climb myself to the top of the ladder. So, until PoE does not give further incentive for its playerbase that clearly is dropping in middle/late of the season I can only see myself playing it for the start of a new season and trying to push for those top spots.
DCUO (DC Universe Online) is another and last new MMORPG I've spent $ on. The game is simply great. The IP, atmosphere, fully voiced, innovative, action packed combat and good graphics are some of the reasons why I enjoyed this game a lot. I do regret not buying the lifetime option of $200 for this game when it launched. So far I have estimated that I've spent around $100 on it.
What SOE has done with DCUO is gave its players an option to pay for DLC(content) as its released every 3-4 months. $10 is very reasonable price, but the cash limit premium players have, let's just say it's doable just very annoying to most. I can see myself going back to this game if I see some package promo where I can purchase the last 3-4 DLC's for a better deal. As I PvP'ed without them I realized each of those DLC's gives some decent advantages like extra enchants/trinket slots etc.
The other thing I like is the fact that when Everquest 3 comes (F2P) with the station pass I can play both of these games and enjoy all of its features/content for $15 a month or even $10 if I get a 6 month to year deal or if I lock myself to some legendary promo. New duos, alerts, raids every 3-4 months is far better than not receiving anything for a year. Of course the quality of WOW raids/dungeons is far more superior but like I said I rather just want to keep myself busy playing the game than not playing it at all for a year.
So yea, I hope I was helpful with the MMORPG's I've played in the last few years and I hope others are helpful as well so we can determine what is the best option the MMORPG player can do now. Wildstar I was considering it strongly to preorder it few days ago, but since it seems to be a direct copy to WOW it has yet to prove itself it has a strong system in place to be the next WOW and I rather not rush. 40 man raids are also not my thing and I was burned once with Aion buying it on launch and only subbed for 2-3 months, but had my reasons.
I really wish the best to Wildstar and I do hope it delivers a lot more content than WOW and feels also far more rewarding for raiding than WOW. For those who care less about shelling $ in the blind, buying Wildstar and playing it throughly is not a bad decision. There are 4+ months (entire summer) to try the game and compare before WOW: WOD comes or anything else. Reality is today MMORPG players will be paying more and receiving less. There are far more MMORPG's and far less players paying on a specific MMORPG. Personally, as long as I'm careful with my $ and not rushing too fast I can afford to overpay on one MMORPG.
Finally, there is EVE, the one MMORPG I regret not commiting myself to (thanks to WOW). It is the only MMORPG out there that has constant progression and economy with one big world and thousands of players. Sadly, if they had better system in place (unlike the passive skill training) to attract new players it would've been much bigger in my opinion. And then I continue hearing some P2W rumors and automation/multiboxing etc. The combat too I think it might've been far better. I know they updated their graphics while ago. Anyways, I've only tried the game for 1-2 months to put a valid opinions about it.
Comments
Let's examine recent entries, keeping in mind that NO MMORPG since or including WoW has classic MMORPG design or gameplay (soloing is NOT an MMORPG staple, it's an abomination introduced going for wider/casual appeal and has lead to the dumbing down of the genre and F2P garbage).
GW2 - not even an MMORPG - it's a single player game with some minimal pseudo grouping (people sharing chat channels and coordinated soloing isn't grouping). GW2 has a cash shop and includes cash for game currency - the worst of F2P sleaze.
Neverwinter - utter F2P trash and an insult to D&D
FFXIX - a dumbed down and simplistic piece of garbage heavily influenced and crippled by consoles (horrific loading times, simplistic graphics - pretty but simplified to reduce objects loaded on consoles)
ESO - combine weak ES with weak MMORPG and you get a weak game that nobody ever wanted. If you love ES you'd rather see ES VI, ideally with limited co-op so that it actually FEELS like ES. If you love MMORPGs you don't really want to see yet another crappy MMORPG based on an IP that shouldn't be made into an MMORPG.
WildStar - a high quality WoW clone with lots of features, and which will have a $60 box price and a $15 sub, yet which also features cash for gold, something we usually call RMT in most MMORPGs of quality, aka CHEATING. So Frost says WildStar is a premium game but I disagree because NO game that has cash for gold pay 2 win in it is premium, and in fact, is not worth playing at all, just like F2P trash that usually features such sleaze.
(As a side note, it's interesting how much press coverage the bots, exploits, dups, and other crap in ESO get - where ZM is trying to combat it, yet Carbine has built-in cheating in the form of CREDD's cash for gold, and Carbine gets NO criticism for this from the gaming press. It's really ridiculous.)
EQ3 - some day, maybe. Looks to have nothing to do with EverQuest except using the name. Keep in mind that SOE didn't make EQ, The Brad (Verant, bought by SOE) did. EQN to me is mostly talk and dreams - SOE has all kinds of amazing things they want to do, most of which has nothing to do with MMORPG gameplay, and they say it'll be F2P, which means it'll be a steaming pile since F2P is for profit, not for quality or for players of quality. And it'll probably be F2P like Landmark is, free to play if you pay $99 to be a founder - a really interesting concept.
Either way, F2P is trash for MMORPGs. It's a company saying, we can't make a quality game worth a sub so instead we'll make a game for losers who don't want to pay for their entertainment and can enjoy a crippled gaming experience, or worse, a game for scrubs who are too lame to actually play games and pay 2 win their way thru game data.
So in the end, MMORPGs are in a bad place and have been for a while. There never was anything wrong with the old/classic MMORPGs that featured challenge and group-heavy play. They were niche games, true, but nobody who loved them was ever saying, you know what would rock, let's get a couple million really low quality scrubs who hate grouping and challenge and flood our worlds with them, because that'd really make things so much better.
Greedy corporate toads are the reason MMORPGs shifted to attempting wider/casual appeal - something that has dramatically lowered the quality of player and that has lowered the quality of the genre as a whole. We get increasingly dumbed down/streamlined/idiot-oriented games. We get more and more F2P trash trying to squeeze money out of those clowns. We get garbage like WildStar cloning WoW and claiming to be a premium game while featuring absolute sleaze in pay 2 win cash for gold. We get SOE whoring out the EQ name.
On one hand, I played WoW for 6.5 years total and consider it one of the best PC games and definitely the best MMORPG of all time. I have no desire to play it now - now that it's been driven into the ground by Ghostcrawler and corporate management and turned into a one of its owned ultra dumbed down clones. But I respect what WoW did.
But on the other hand, I curse WoW for switching the MMORPG genre away from grouping, away from challenge, away from worlds of wonder and danger that formulated community, and that turned it into a steaming cesspool of greedy, self-centered, non stop instant gratification requiring, challenge hating, babies. WoW pretty much ruined the MMORPG genre by being successful, since MMORPG devs copy IT, and completely bypass and ignore the original formula for what used to be one of the greatest gaming genres to ever hit PC gaming.
I'm not so sure that it's obvious that people love the WoW style of game since no MMORPG after WoW has really captured the same success. Following WoW's formula (and IMO, Bliz got very luck in so many ways, nobody will EVER get away with the delays in content and features that they did when WoW hit) does not work for anybody else. It doesn't retain players. Because ultimately MMORPGs are about grouping (what ends up being endgame or "the real game" in modern MMORPGs) and it's just not possible to provide enough oomph to solo players. Period. So the dumber they make these games, the harder they try to suck in fools who should never play MMORPGs, the faster they fizzle and burn.
It's almost like people who want challenge and to group all the time aren't that numerous and such a genre should be more niche, and developers for that genre should accept that and design games accordingly? Kind of like, oh, I dunno, MMORPGs devs used to do before WoW ruined the genre?
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
Good quality games In market (issues asside)
Wow , great game
GW 2 great game
ESO good game
Eve good game
Wildstar looks like wow quality game, ex wow devs.
What offers the most fresh quality content overcthe next year is a better question, and with 50 levels, 20 odd new zones in a world developed over 9 years it's hard to see past Wildstar IMO.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Soloing had been a staple in mmo's since uo. You could do it effectively with UO, SWG, AC...
Eq was the outlier.
So IMO they have just gone back to their roots.
And don't kid yourself the older MMO's were massive numbers of complaints. Heck that's one reason WoW was made.
That being said I'll have to agree with Bladestrom and add there is only a "best option" for the particular features you are looking for.
I'd add EQ2 to that list as well as a good mix of themepark and sandbox elements. Good crafting system, great building system.
double post
Mostly agree with Voqar.
MMORPGS in the present are just, sadness. Pick whatever one fits your preference at the time and grind it out. Til you get bored. Then there are a number of other games on the market to try out.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Best is subjective.
But if you ask me ...
Best option for PvE is Diablo 3.
Best option for PvP is some e-sport game like WoT or LoL.
Totally focused game .. very convenient .. no need to social ... and 100% jump in and have fun.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Best value for the money is Guild Wars 2.
But if the person is just looking for a warm up MMO while waiting for the upcoming ones, I don't see the point in spending money. I personally would be looking for F2P titles. The ones I'd recommend are Rift, DCUO, SWTOR, and Neverwinter.
+1
"the best MMORPG choice for the MMORPG player right now"
Here's the catch what shoots an arrow into the knee of the whole post, there's no such thing as mmorpg player, in a whole. There are only gamers. I mean, yep, there must be some fellas playing only mmo's on pc / console, and nothing else beyond, not even cards or boardgames or crosswords etc., but I'm sure it's not a big chunk among the playerbase in a whole.
But let's say those are in focus now, ok, I get it. Even those aren't a common, unified group... I know a dude who's playing only Tera (besides a lot of console craps, so not an "mmorpg gamer" by the letter either, it's only for the example). There's an another who's on the King's isle all the time (the basic, 101 version of mmo gaming
). Can you give a "best choice" to both of them at the same time? I don't think so. Or you mean the "classic mmo" players? Those can be divided into sub-groups as well.
But you already know that, this was the start, the first two points in the reality check. There are truckloads of gamers, each with their own preferences, and a truckload of games giving them options to choose from. I can only think on 1 thing that could be a common ground among those players, and that's fun. People are playing to have fun. And since fun comes from different sources to everyone, you can't pull one set of game parameters onto everyone. Simple as that.
That's why we have an LFG subsection
Even for one player, who describes his/her preferences, you can suggest at least a couple different games. There's no best option for the MMORPG player right now as the title says.
The only thing I agree on with you is that I also haven't payed for DCUO since we're under P7S1
but if SOE somehow could put us under the All Access too, I'd drop in a few bucks (even though I don't care about the EQ's, only DCUO, PS2 and Landmark)
> BUT, as a someone who is unbiased when it comes to what type of game I would play
Major fail right there.
Nobody is unbiased in their preferences.
Dude , you sound like you need a holiday ... or a couple of sessions with a good therapist. Do you want to borrow an axe to get rid of that chip on your shoulder ... sheesh talk about angry ...
+2 open your eyes
Best Value - Guild Wars 2
Best Sandbox - Eve Online
Best Questing - Guild Wars 2
Best Storytelling - The Secret World
Best PVP - Eve Online
Best PVE* - Eve Online
Best Setting - The Secret World
Best Puzzles - The Secret World
Best Racial Design - Guild Wars 2
*Since I know people will lose their minds over this, I'm talking about outside of questing/missions.
LFGame » Let's summarize what is the best option for the MMORPG player right now.
Right now if I need to pick one of the new contenders ,Minecraft and thats it pretty much.
and +3 to Voqar.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
The best value right now?
That depends on a lot of factors, but to me, it would have to be Guild Wars 2. It's B2P, no subscription, a minimal, unobtrusive cash shop, pretty good combat, a decent (but not great by any means) story,and large scale world vs world combat as well as smaller scale 5 man structured pvp.
Also, for the most part you can make your own build in the game and be effective if you figure out how you want to play. The leveling can be kind of slow and lonely towards the middle game but you aren't locked out of any areas or quests so you can be free to wander into slightly higher level zones if you think you can handle it, or if you have a friend that can help you.
Agree, please add:
Best Art: Guild Wars 2
Best Raiding: World of Warcraft
OP, please don't listen to this person. They seem bitter, and they are wrong about a lot. Also MMORPG are moving into the best place they have ever been. Jaded, and jilted players (which are everywhere on this site) will tell you the opposite though. I'll work on a post for a replay, brb
The best option:
Step 1: enter www.mmorpg.com
Step 2: refresh the page until a background advertisement with naked women appears
Step 3: start playing
Right, just ignore that guy on the first page who pretty much says that EQ is the one and only and all other MMOs are not real MMOs. Just because ONE MMO decided that grouping must be mandatory doesn't mean everyone should follow. It's not even the game that invented MMOs.
Ok, I will keep this brief and short. There are quite a few MMOs which are worth it in my opinion. As long as you are chill and realise that choosing an MMO game is not a lifelong decision but just picking a game to have fun for a few months, there are plenty of good options.
Guild Wars 1 - great for competitive PvP, tons of skill combinations, huge amount for content, great value for money. Seriously this game has 1500-1600 active skills in it! How can you beat that!
World of Warcraft - very good for competitive PvP, raiding, Warcraft lore fans, tons of content
LOTRO - great for storytelling, immersing world, lore and story, lord of the rings fans
GW2 - has tons of PvP options, some of them not so fleshed out. Great for a fairly unique experience (hearts, events), exceptional value for money game. Great if you don't like having dedicated roles
ESO - great for storytelling, immersive world, large scale PvP, flexible character progression, Elder Scrolls fans
EQ 2 - tons of content, great for raiding, alternative progression systems, best housing in the market!
RIFT - tons of content, great for raiding, great talent tree system
SWTOR - great for storytelling, immersion and star wars fans.
The Secret World - amazing skill system which offers hundreds of combinations, great atmosphere, immersion, puzzles.
There are probably even more. But these are the ones that I have played/know enough to comment on.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I have yard work, pool maintenance and a baby to occupy my time. If i get desperate there is always SWGemu. When the industry produces a product worth my time and money, i'll buy it.
I don't think that you can talk about us as a single 'thing'. I have to sort it by at least two sub sets. It probably should be a lot more, but I have only so much time to devote to this;
Best option for the 'Virtual World' MMOer? Archeage.
Best Option for the 'Drop in' MMOer? Final Fantasy XIV.
In my opinion (included for legal reasons)
The best choice for the MMO players is the one they want to play. The only people that are going to think the same way as you do, are people that enjoy the same things you do.
So, this is a pretty useless discussion all told. It always has and always will come down to individual taste and desires.
Oh yes, In my opinion, of course.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.