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Help! Can't figure out what MMORPG to try (Fantasy Preference)
After playing (and still currently playing) Dragon Age Inquisition, I finally felt WoW's hold on me disappear and realized now might be a good time to move on. With that said, I'm undecided on where I should move onto, and was hoping to get some ideas from MMORPG.com's community!
I've played a few MMORPGs for a rather long time, enough to know exactly why I'm not playing them right now at the very least. I'll start off with that.
First, the most recent.
World of Warcraft : Warlords of Draenor
I, like many others, really enjoy World of Warcraft but on more than one occasion, I've felt the game become simply un-fun. For more tangible reasons however, I first don't like the direction WoW went in. As odd as it is to say, I feel like making the game generally better, made the game less interesting. First off, the game itself made it not impossible, but difficult to truly enjoy the social aspect of being an MMORPG. Having around 30 days of level 100 /played recorded time, there is not a single instance where I enjoyed actually playing with other people.
This could be the server that I was on, but it felt like since you could rely on automated systems to find a group for you, there wasn't really any need for any sort of human interaction at all with people I grouped with. Nor did they make much of an attempt to interact themselves.
Next, I feel like the exploration element of WoW is there more than in the past expansions, but I still don't feel very enthralled by it.
Finally, I really don't like any of the classes in the game. When I came back to WoW, I kept in mind that I could be playing that class for years to come, hence I would want to like that class. In my ideal world, there would be a class that combined magic with melee and had a Knight-esque theme. Paladin comes to mind of course, but then there's the off-healing aspect which I don't find appealing at all. Yes, you could get away with ignoring the off-healing aspect but to me, that means I wouldn't be using the class to its full potential.
In short, there is no class that combines magic and melee with no healing capabilities in WoW except for Death Knight where I dislike the theme of the class.
Guild Wars 2 - Didn't like the class choices. I stopped playing after a couple hundred hours because, while there was a lot of content. I didn't like the direction that GW2 seemed to be going in.
Star Wars : The Old Republic - Gameplay felt clunky. Stories and lore was good but not enough to make up for the unappealing gameplay.
So! Now for my actual likes and what I'm looking for :
-I've liked the stories I heard from Eve Online but I never really liked the theme of that game, if there's a fantasy Eve Online that I don't know about, that might be worth a shot
-I prefer a fantasy theme
-If the game has pretty established lore, that's good. I won't say "interesting" lore, because my interesting is probably different from others.
-I don't mind theme park MMORPGs or Sandbox ones
-Actual player housing is always a plus, not needed however
-One of the reasons I was so drawn to WoW in the past was twofold. Initally it was the exploration of a world I was really interested in (being a WC fan). Second was striving for accomplishments. Both were immensely compelling and if there's a game that rivals old WoW's "environment" per say, I would love to know about it.
I think that's everything I have for now, thanks for reading!
Comments
Final Fantasy XIV
Heavily story based themepark fantasy MMO
Player and Free Company (Guild) Housing
A Metric TON of challenging content (most people are not caught up to the current raid content because previous tiers are still that difficult)
And we haven't even got our first expansion yet. Though Heavensward is due out sometime in late spring.
Crafting is meaningful and is more of a playstyle than just a sideshow distraction
The combat is your standard tab and hotkey, but at a slower pace with a 2.5 GCD for better animations. There are plenty of skills mostly cooldowns that are off the GCD to weave into your rotations. But for the most part the combat is more about situational awareness and positioning, so having a slower hotkey rotation is beneficial considering how hectic things can get in a boss fight at endgame.
This game can and will occupy you endlessly with the amount of things to do, all on one character I might add. That's right you can level every class/job and crafting/gathering prof on one character.
Come check it out.
I'm on Gilgamesh
It seems your likes are in stark contrast with why you didn't like the other games you mentioned to the point it seems your priorities are not what you described.
Like mentioned above one of the best fantasy themed themepark MMOs right now is FFXIV. The lore is bursting with interesting stuff and every patch expands on it. All features have a storyline associated with them, from dailies to barber. Player housing is included but will take some dedication to reach.
As for the rest, you sound very hard to please based on the class comments so maybe you won't like FFXIV classes either, who knows. They absolutely "do the job" but if you're looking for something to blow your mind you won't find it here. More classes are constantly on the way though, with Ninja added few months ago and three more classes coming this Spring. We also can't say whether you will find FFXIV environments and atmosphere compelling, especially if you cannot go into the game with an open mind. Going in with the baggage from WoW, SWTOR and GW2 may just make you overly critical and unable to immerse yourself. Either way FFXIV is a fun game if you let it be and as a customer it truly gives the most value for your buck, similarly to early WoW days when content didn't take a year to come out. It is the best value P2P can offer.
The game has dungeon finder but most people in-game agree that the community is still more friendly than in WoW with the occasional asshats and jerks.
One of the reasons I was so drawn to WoW in the past was twofold. Initally it was the exploration of a world I was really interested in (being a WC fan). Second was striving for accomplishments. Both were immensely compelling and if there's a game that rivals old WoW's "environment" per say, I would love to know about it.
Well in that case i suggest try EQ2. After enjoying WOD to the fullest and burnt out i started playing EQ2 again. It is the only MMO which rivals WOW's world in terms of exploration, size and accomplishments.
FFXIV is small world with shoe box size zones. You can try it out if you like but from what i have read in your post. You won't last long in there. Give EQ2 a try if you like. it is F2P and you got nothing to lose. It has bigget choice of classes and races any MMO offers right now.
Wow, thanks for the fast replies everyone. I definitely don't regret giving posting here a shot now.
In any case, it was difficult to summarize what I liked and disliked about WoW without writing an article.
Basically what it comes down to is that I loved old WoW, and don't mind current WoW. Yet I don't see a point in spending another hundred(s) of hours playing something I don't love.
Things I've found out I liked based off past MMORPG experiences :
-Lore/Story
-Smaller group content (raiding is fine, but I definitely prefer 5 man dungeons to 10-25 raids) : On this note, GW2's set up was amazing. In practice however, I found small group content with GW2's mechanics... lacking.
-Exploration : The best example I can give of this is that I absolutely loved stepping foot into a new zone in old WoW and figuring out where everything is at, how I could survive, so on and so forth. A more direct reference is Old Duskwood. Despite me loving other zones, the terror I felt from traversing in duskwood was absolutely unforgettable.
-Feeling Small - Here's a weird one that I just thought of, which I miss from old WoW of course. By feeling small, I mean it feels like the world is an actual threat to you. The average, level appropiate mob by itself, can take off a good portion of your health/resources while you fight it. Taking on more than 1 is possible alone, but risky without management of crowd control. Taking on 3 would be possible but you'd be fighting for your life. That sort of feeling was largely removed from pretty much every game I mentioned.
In fact, I'd probably classify MMO characters into 3 groups. The lowest tier is comprised of grunts, various mobs that roam the world, nameless things. Tier 2 would be elites who could be named, or just stronger enemies. Finally, Tier 3 are your faction leaders or bosses. The feeling I've gotten from SWTOR, GW2, and most certainly WoW is that there's a 4th Tier level, in between Bosses and Elites; which is to say, I certainly don't feel small while playing those games.
-Classes : Ironically, I'm probably fine with any class system so long as there is a class that I like. In my case it would be Mage Knight, Magic Knight, Mystic Knight, Arcane Warrior, Knight-Enchanter, Rune Knight, sometimes Spell Fencer or Valkyrie, Spellblade, Spellsword. It could go by a lot of names but usually these classes/archetypes are good enough. In Final Fantasy's case, that would be Red Mage I believe.
And everything else is nice but not needed, E.G. : Housing, Deep Facial/Body Customization, World vs World, Large Scale PvP, Vanity Pets, Achievement System, Faction Grinding, Player Factions, Sandbox MMORPG, Armor/Weapon...Appearance Changing. These are all things I like but really, I can live without them.
Final Fantasy XIV was always a game I've been hot and cold on. Without actually having played it at all, I can say that it has features that interest me. The biggest and only turn off that I can think of is the Final Fantasy title. While I know that Final Fantasies have almost nothing in common with each other, it still was admittedly the biggest thing keeping me from giving it a try. I like Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Advanced, and 4. Sooo, I should be good, right?
Eh, I'll be looking into it more anyways.
If anyone has any more game suggestions, I'd love to hear them still.
ESO is another title I should look into. I suppose my main question there is that I like Neverwinter's combat, how similar is ESO?