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Please help me find an MMO
Alright, before I write anything else, please be aware that I'm looking for an MMO to play with my girlfriend, and we are both very picky!
We've played a lot of multiplayer, co-op and massively-multiplayer games together in the past, and we've recently started looking for some new ground to cover while we wait for Dark Souls 3 to get its DLC. But we're really struggling to find a new MMO that looks appealing. I've been scouting around and have some potential ideas, but I'm looking for more suggestions.
As of right now, here's few lists:
What we would like:
Also, here's list of games we've tried and either drifted away from, are uninterested in, or not enjoyed:
There are probably some others that I'm not thinking of right now, I'll add them if I remember what they are. But for now, here's some MMOs we might be considering, any opinions on them would be appreciated!
Here's hoping you guys have some advice and suggestions for us!
Cheers!
We've played a lot of multiplayer, co-op and massively-multiplayer games together in the past, and we've recently started looking for some new ground to cover while we wait for Dark Souls 3 to get its DLC. But we're really struggling to find a new MMO that looks appealing. I've been scouting around and have some potential ideas, but I'm looking for more suggestions.
As of right now, here's few lists:
What we would like:
- Good character customisation and pretty characters. This is a must - something akin to TERA or Aion customisation would do nicely.
- No forced PVP. We've played MMOs in the past that have had forced PVP, and it almost always ruins the experience for us.
- Relatively good graphics. We don't need every game to look like Black Desert or Bless. But anything very clearly dated is a no-no.
- Preferably fantasy. We're not opposed to sci-fi, but we tend to gravitate more towards fantasy RPGs, especially ones with elves.
- More to do than just combat. It doesn't need to be a full-on sandbox MMO, but anything that actually has decent non-combat content.
- Non-gender/race locked classes. This is more of a preference than a requirement, but we like versatility in our characters.
- Player housing. Again, not required, but greatly preferred. Instanced or world-based, doesn't matter. But we like having player houses.
- No subscription. Free2Play MMOs are preferred, but we're not 100% opposed to Buy2Play games.
Also, here's list of games we've tried and either drifted away from, are uninterested in, or not enjoyed:
- Archeage: Great gameplay, great world, great character customisation, great graphics. One of the worst and most toxic communities we've met.
- TERA: A very fun and visually pleasing game that held our attention for a long time, but eventually became far too repetitive.
- Aion: Another game that held our attention for a fair amount of time and was visually pleasing. But we grew bored of it, and it hasn't aged well.
- Perfect World: Very, very badly dated game with race and gender locked classes. Also, the community appears to be nonexistent.
- Forsaken World: Ditto of above, although probably not quite as badly aged. We did play this a while back, but not for very long.
- Starforge: We just couldn't get into this one, it was too... strange. The whole game just has a kind of "off" feeling, not quite sure why.
- The Secret World: The great story and quests don't make up for the absolutely atrocious UI menus and controls. No endgame beyond raids.
- APB: Reloaded: Nothing but aggressive PVP and an incredibly hostile community. Even more toxic than AA's.
- Elder Scrolls Online: Despite running at 60fps with vsync turned on, this game tends to make us both oddly nauseous.
- Phantasy Star Online 2: Not fond of the visuals of this one, and the gameplay seems far too overwhelming at that. Not to mention region-locking.
- World of Warcraft: Hasn't aged well for our tastes. Plus I think it's still subscription based.
- Lord of the Rings Online: Graphics seem very dated and gameplay isn't much to our liking.
- Black Desert Online: Race and gender locked classes along with forced PVP after level 45(?) not to mention it's buy-to-play.
- Final Fantasy XIV: Would be a candidate were it not using an archaic subscription system.
There are probably some others that I'm not thinking of right now, I'll add them if I remember what they are. But for now, here's some MMOs we might be considering, any opinions on them would be appreciated!
- Riders of Icarus: Gameplay looks okay, but we're not super into mounts. Apparently the NA/EU version has been very badly gutted by Nexon.
- Echo of Soul: Gender and race-locked classes is a big turnoff, and the gameplay seems dull. But visually quite nice.
- Blade and Soul: Good character customisation and action combat, but the setting isn't too appealing to us, and it seems to be only combat.
- Bless: Fantastic character customisation and gameplay looks fun, but requires a KR account and a VPN to play, apparently has forced PVP?
- Guild Wars 2: Unsure on this one, races seem odd, and it's buy2play, but I've heard good things about it.
- Neverwinter: We've played a bit of this and we're still up in the air about it. Action combat is nice, but the character customisation feels lacking.
Here's hoping you guys have some advice and suggestions for us!
Cheers!
Comments
I also like Marvel Heroes. It has the Diablo perspective gameplay but is a lot of fun, imo.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
As for archeage community, that honestly depends. You're acting like you've played on every server all times of day with that. Communities in any game all depend so you can't really write it off solely on that. I would write it off as being the definition of pay 2 win though even though I enjoyed my time with the game for the crafting, building houses/cars/boats etc.
Have you tried something like Ark : Survival Evolved before?
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
To address some things:
As for Archeage: Perhaps I was just unlucky, but I played on about 5 different servers across both the NA and EA server groups, and I also played it during the closed founder's beta (although I didn't get to play much during the initial launch because of what a train-wreck it was.) Consistently, across every server, I noticed an incredibly toxic and hostile community. Drama and arguments on the global chats were regular, as was abuse through the mail system and over the forums. I played primarily on Tahyang, and for a "PVE/RP" focused server, it saw more vitriol and bitterness than I'd care to remember.
This isn't to say that everybody who played it was a bad egg. There were certainly nice people playing the game, many of whom I befriended. I was even in a fairly large guild for a while. But when it comes to large communities of players, it's the loud minority that stands out (or the very loud majority, in Archeage's case) and paired with the game's insistence to force players into PVP, even with their own damn faction, resulted in some of my least favourite MMO memories:
Including, but not limited to:
Being placed on a Kill-on-sight list because of the guild I was in.
Getting blockaded during a trade run and being forced to abandon my cargo.
More ganks than is healthy.
Being murdered by members of my own faction while in a "safe" town area.
Being sent abusive whispers and mail through the in-game system.
Being stalked and harassed by individuals while attempting to do PVE content.
And last, but not least...
Getting "exiled" from my guild and having an entire group of players from my own faction actively become hostile to me... Because I said I was taking a break from the game.
So no, I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say that Archeage had one of the most toxic and aggressive communities I've ever experienced. Again, perhaps I'm just unlucky. But that's how it was for me.
Wildstar, again, doesn't really visually appeal to me. It's a bit too "cartoony" for my liking. The gameplay itself looks fine, but the aesthetics don't mesh with me.
As for Ark: I tried a bit of it at a friends house and didn't really like it much. Couldn't get into it for much the same reason as Starforge: It felt a bit too strange and disconnected. Too out of my comfort zone.
FFXIV does look very appealing, I must say. But I simply cannot justify a subscription fee for a video game these days. I already pay far too many subscription fees as it is, as well as all that "living" that I have to do in the real world. Besides, I personally feel the subscription fee is a dying breed of payment, and as far as I'm concerned, it can stay dead. I never liked the idea behind it, and while some F2P (and even B2P) games can employ incredibly callous methods when it comes to microtransactions, at least they're not automatically sucking money out of my wallet every month.
If FFXIV ever goes B2P, rest assured I'll be one of the first to check it out. But until that time? It'll remain a, hah, fantasy.
There's an alarming deficiency in nice co-op games these days. At least, ones we haven't already played. We've got the first Dark Souls to play through together (we've already beaten both 2 and 3 several times over together) but that's a tad high-intensity at times.
In terms of other games, there's Starbound, which has a lot of cool content getting added to it, but still isn't released. Stardew Valley, which doesn't have the Co-op patch yet and probably won't for several months. Unepic, which has some very unforgiving multiplayer, and... Nothing else that I can really think of.
Trust me, though, when I say we have plumbed the depths of co-op games out there. We're starting to get desperate. We even considered buying AC: Unity recently.
Unity.
But until such a time when a new co-op game comes out and catches our interest, we turn to MMOs.
We played wildstar up to endgame. I was like you and the art didn't appeal to me but after playing for awhile it doesn't bother me anymore. We quit cause it took forever to get groups for dungeons and nobody did any of the excursions anymore.
Besides, I'm no expert, but I think if forced-subscription games were still as financially viable as they were back in the hay-day of MMOs, then we'd be seeing more of them. But they've fallen out of fashion lately, not just with players but with publishers and developers, too. I feel there's a pretty good reason for that...
Point aside, my reasoning for not paying a sub for FFXIV isn't so much about my distaste for the payment model (I hated the payment model AA ran with but I still played that for almost a year) and more because I simply can't justify it with my current finance.
There are some luxuries I have to go without.
Unfortunately it lacks in non combat content
But other than that, its worth a try considering what it does have is pretty good especially for someone new to the game.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
- Black Desert Online: Race and gender locked classes along with forced PVP after level 45(?) not to mention it's buy-to-play.
Everyone's different but this seems like a fairly superficial reason not to try BDO. I would suggest getting some trial keys if GW2 doesn't work out for you two. It seems to satisfy most of what your looking for.PVP is enabled for everyone after 45 but ganking doesn't happen seriously anymore. You have more power as a person being ganked than the ganker now that they took away xp loss for dying in pvp. You're more of a threat to come back and killsteal their mobs for an hour than they are a threat to force you to respawn 10 feet away (not to mention they get a severe karma penalty for PKing, so they can't just keep pking you over and over).
Regardless, though, the gender and race locking is a huge turn off for myself and my girlfriend. We tend to spend a lot of time on our characters in any game. Black Desert's class system essentially goes:
"If you want to do cool dark magic, then you have to be this scantily clad lady who walks like a runway model. Swords and shields are for boys only!"
Plus, it seems that it's impossible to play the "wizard" class without being an old man, and so on.
I know that doesn't bother some people, but it bothers the hell out of me.
If it had forced PVP, but no gender/race locks, I'd give it a try. If it kept the locking but had no forced PVP, I'd give it a try.
Both? though? Nah. Sorry. Not worth the download space in our books.
I've looked into this one, but it's far too dated for my liking, visually I mean. I'm vain and petty like that.
I was hyped for Everquest Next, but then it got cancelled because ????????
You are correct, there is nothing in MMO space available for you to play, you are being too picky.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Oh, and Monster Hunter P3rd via PPSSPP Emulator (over LAN) is fantastic.
Thanks for the advice, folks!
If you say so. There is a female warrior couterpart, the Valkyrie. The only classes that are really gender locked are Tamer, Archer, Sorceress and Berserker.