What mmo was the most pleasant surprise to you?

Amathe · May 2018

I am talking about some game where you went in with low expectations, just to "give it a shot," or maybe some friend dragged you in, and you expected the game to be sub-par. But it turned out to be really good after all.

For me that game was GW2. I only signed up to pass time while waiting on something else. But I ended up liking it. For a few years at least.

Panther2103 · May 2018

Project Gorgon.

I didn't give it much of a shot in the Pre Alpha, I was never a backer. I just knew it looked like an oldschool game and felt kinda clunky.

Recently I picked it up on Steam and it has become my main MMORPG. It is so much fun on every level for me. Graphically it's not great, but it has an oldschool charm. Performance wise it sucks right now, I have to turn a lot of settings down, and you still get massive lag in the main town. But for some reason the game is just incredibly fun to run around and explore in, find new skills, level up random skills.

I'm surprised as hell that two people managed to pull off this game. But I can see myself dumping so much time into it (in between playing Conan Exiles at the moment).

Sovrath · May 2018

Well, I guess my first one, Lineage 2.

I was only going to try an online game. I had no intention of playing one for years.

rojoArcueid · May 2018

That would be FFXIV for me. After playing version 1.0 and not really enjoying it, i went into ARR with below zero expectations. I was pleasantly surprised, despite some things i consider big flaws such as locking main story quests behind mandatory group dungeons. Also the infamous long global cooldowns but I can live with the cooldowns because as a spell caster it makes me feel like i'm playing a classic FF game with more people.

Sephiroso · May 2018

BDO's combat was the most pleasant surprise to me. Most korean grinders have meh combat at best, but BDO was the smoothest/finest/funnest(i know i know, not a word) i've ever experienced in an mmorpg before.

That said the rest of the game falls flat, especially with how p2w it is. I think talking overall mmorpg that i was pleasant surprised? There's only 1 answer. MapleStory 2.

I remember when i first saw videos of it and saw how far removed it was from MS1 i thought it was hot garbage. Looked like some piece of shit Trove remake with the MS ip. I was very wrong. Nexon knows how to make a good game when they want to put the time and effort into it. Hell their second mmorpg Dark Ages gave me many wonderful years of experiences and MapleStory gave me quite a bit of fun too(that damn cash shop tho...)

I really hope they don't let the cash shop ruin this game though because the game itself is fucking fantastic. And playing this on the controller just makes it that much better of an experience. I'm a simple person, for me to like a game, the combat needs to be on point, the control needs to feel fluid, and have enough content to keep me busy. MS2 has all of that.

Moirae · May 2018

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. I quite enjoyed it. What killed it for me? Hook level housing is a laughable joke, and you can't play any expansion without having a monthly account even though the latest expansions changed the game to what it should have been all along. KOTOR should never be an MMO. People are still playing and modding the originals and it's been nearly 20 years. They really blew an opportunity.

[Deleted User] · May 2018

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virgommo · May 2018

Life has been my biggest surprise. Has had it's ups and downs but overall a positive experience. It's easy to get into out of the gate with an arguably fun way to to win a copy. My biggest gripe, would be it's forced subscription model. Once you opt in to it, you are stuck with it. You lose all progress if you opt out, so once you start playing you're pretty much in it for the long haul.

TheDarkrayne · May 2018

I've been trying to think of one but I can't. I guess I always know what to expect? I've had disappointments, sure.. but not pleasant surprises.

Going back to LOTRO last year was a pleasant surprise I suppose. I've played it before but these days it's the only MMO where I feel like I'm exploring a world instead of ticking off boxes.

TheDarkrayne · May 2018

Moirae said:

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. I quite enjoyed it. What killed it for me? Hook level housing is a laughable joke, and you can't play any expansion without having a monthly account even though the latest expansions changed the game to what it should have been all along. KOTOR should never be an MMO. People are still playing and modding the originals and it's been nearly 20 years. They really blew an opportunity.

You need to sub for 1 month and then you keep the expansions forever... even if you go back to ftp.

Mikeha · May 2018

blueturtle13 said:

EQ2
I am not and was never a fan of EQ.
I never saw the attraction to EQ personally.
( I played and enjoyed Asheron’s Call)
when I tried EQ2 I never thought I would play the game for a decade. Just something about the game resonated with me.

EQ 2 is that game for me also. Took a break from Lineage 2 and decided to just give the game a try and ended up having an amazing time.

Cryomatrix · May 2018

I figured I'd test Neverwinter Nights because I liked the lore and read a ton of the forgotten realms books. I was hooked on it and liked the game but I eventually quit a few months later as it was a rather shallow game with good combat. Nonetheless, I wasn't expecting much but it turned it to be a game I played.

Cryomatrix

mistmaker · May 2018

SWG2

JeffSpicoli · May 2018

Eve Online, Always heard people refer to it as a spread sheet simulator but there is a alot of eye candy and limited but somewhat hands on gameplay. Really thought i was going to hate but ended up loving it, well except for the ganking part.

sumdumguy1 · May 2018

The secret world. I thought meh another game, but this game was special for me. Honorable Mention for FF14, GW 1 and 2, and SWTOR.

stealth80 · May 2018

Well I'm going to be the first one to say it - WOW! Really blew me away (my first MMO) I had some guy I worked with that loved it and its all I heard about for like over a year, the following year I played a trial and didn't really get on with it (Back in really early TBC) mainly the corpse run in Elwyn Forest. A few months later my wife bought it for me for Fathers Day (kid was 2.5 lol) so I thought I had better give this a proper go now - I went in with the attention of hitting cap and selling the account, there were a few selling on ebay back then (remember i was a total noob haha). I made a mage, and around level 53 I was hooked, killing giant elite frost elementals for a quest that took ages.
It took me another year or so to fully understand everything, info was scarce back then and it was my first MMO as I said above, so even simple things like trinity, tanks, aggro and need/greed were all new terms. I was in Tier 4/5 content by the time the Sunwell Patch hit, and managed to clear BT/SSC prior to the Wotlk launch, on what was and still is a fairly low pop server. I carried on playing with a couple of breaks over around 8 years I think, was GM for a 25 guild during HC ICC, quit in cata (urgh) played most of MoP getting some pretty high level kills and the first time I cleared all content prior to expansion - one of my best times in the game, Draenor was the start of the end for me, they basically started making it into a Farmville/RPG aka all the interaction was gone.

I remember levelling that mage and meeting a random guy in game I become friends with for like 4 years, ive met a couple of others real life and had a blast out in Liverpool and stuff. I don't feel the game offers that interaction anymore, and I think its that early interaction that really took me by surprise. I also really loved some of the synergy by combining certain sets/trinkets, especially as Lock in Siege O.O.!!

In those AFKs and since I quite back in Legion, I haven't found anything that offers the package WOW did back then. Ive had threads on here asking for games like it that have the customisation like on the older gear, i love procs and abilities that make you react, I enjoyed Enhance Shammy back in early cata tracking all the stacks and watching procs - haven't had it really since.

SWTOR - I loved it, really did. Played Sith Assassin and tanked/DPS'd and really enjoyed it - went away for like 4 months with work and built a new PC with the money saved, thinking "this beast will have no problems now in the Death Star" to be greeted by an empty death star on my return - all my guildies had gone back to WOW .... The other games were Rift (on release) loved the PVP in that and a few stints in FF14 - but FF14 always felt kinda clunky and couldnt hold my attention.

WOW (old WOW aka TBC) is a hole in my heart for MMO's

Kyleran · May 2018

The only real "surprise" for me is that I've never found another MMO after EVE back in 2007 that I ever played for more than 3 months.

So much "suck" out there.

Quizar1973 · May 2018

Star Wars Galaxies before they fucked it all up....I loved spending time building up to Jedi and then the NGE just let players be a Jedi right from the start...So yea...Before the NGE

Iselin · May 2018

Dark Age of Camelot. I knew nothing about it other than the Arthurian angle going in. I was just tired of AC and decided to check it out. It showed me what organized PVP with legitimate goals was all about. Loved it to pieces in not time at all.

Mardukk · May 2018

Umm...Errr. I think maybe WoW surprised me a little bit with how much more user friendly it was than EQ. I know there must be one....I just don't know...so many let downs. Maybe the least crappy as compared to the hype was GW2 as it was different than your typical WoW clone, that was being released at the time.

Scorchien · May 2018

DAOC.....

I was heavy into UO and AC at the time (still play UO) a couple friends twisted my arm into trying, played for years ..

Im generally not an Alt player but i had so much fun in DAOC with all the classes and races that DAOC offered , and of course so many great quest lines in the 3 faction areas .. Stili a great game today ..
+

Sephiroso · May 2018

ikcin said:

Lineage 2.

Sephiroso said:

BDO's combat was the most pleasant surprise to me. Most korean grinders have meh combat at best, but BDO was the smoothest/finest/funnest(i know i know, not a word) i've ever experienced in an mmorpg before.

That said the rest of the game falls flat, especially with how p2w it is. I think talking overall mmorpg that i was pleasant surprised? There's only 1 answer. MapleStory 2.

I remember when i first saw videos of it and saw how far removed it was from MS1 i thought it was hot garbage. Looked like some piece of shit Trove remake with the MS ip. I was very wrong. Nexon knows how to make a good game when they want to put the time and effort into it. Hell their second mmorpg Dark Ages gave me many wonderful years of experiences and MapleStory gave me quite a bit of fun too(that damn cash shop tho...)

I really hope they don't let the cash shop ruin this game though because the game itself is fucking fantastic. And playing this on the controller just makes it that much better of an experience. I'm a simple person, for me to like a game, the combat needs to be on point, the control needs to feel fluid, and have enough content to keep me busy. MS2 has all of that.

The combat in BDO was fun before the so called awakening (in fact that was the last step of turning the game into completely deferent thing from the initial project) But it is not so much better than that in GW2. As for the PvE and PvP, they are terrible in BDO. So what is the purpose of the combat?

Not denying the rest of BDO sucked outside of its combat. But in order for a game to be any good at all, its combat needs solid or else no amount of prettiness will make it playable(well to most people).

Also i really don't see how anyone can think GW2's combat was anywhere on the level of BDO's. Like, when i first bought and tried GW2, it was the best combat i had tried up to that point. Better than WoW, Tera, and any other game i'd played to date. This was back during just vanilla GW2.

But after experiencing BDO years later and later still having a brief stint where i went back to GW2 for a bit...GW2 just felt janky in comparison. The best way i can explain it is when i use a skill in BDO, it feels fluid like and works like i expect it would work...natural, intuitive. GW2 just didn't give me the same feeling.

Granted we're talking about combat so obviously subjective territory so take that as you will.

TheScavenger · May 2018

Honestly, it was WoW

Never too big a Warcraft fan. I did play Warcraft 3+the expansion, enjoyed singleplayer quite a lot (more so base version of Warcraft 3, didn't like expansion as much) but was never that big into Blizzard games or WoW. Never even enjoyed Starcraft 2, since more a fan of the more epic and slow paced strategies (Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings kinda games, or simulators). Diablo 2 was fun though, but I kinda missed out on that since was into other games.

Did enjoy Warcraft 3 arcade maps however, but that was about it and I sucked at most of those anyway cause too fast paced lol

But then, there it was...Fileplanet beta for WoW.

I made an Orc, made my way to Sen'jin village. And finally, it was the first MMO I personally played that had amazing underwater swimming AND combat. Every previous MMO I was stuck on land and couldn't swim underwater. It was most immersive experience I ever had in an MMO, more than any sandbox MMO before that could provide. The music was amazing, combat at the time was a lot of fun for an MMO and it was just a pure fun experience. Most MMOs before WoW were too grindy or too hardcore...and then there was WoW, a pretty casual, very fun and not grindy MMO at all compared to others

It wasn't just that either. So many MMOs before WoW were buggy as fuck messes at launch, or/and very purely optimized. And there was WoW, the least buggy MMO I personally played at launch (even at beta), that also had a ton of content

I logged off beta. Bought WoW right away, and still play WoW to this day lol. off/on but still quite a bit.

WoW wasn't my first MMO (that be Asheron's Call back in 1999), but it was (and still is to me) the most fun MMO ever made...one can argue not so much now...but when it was released, for me, it was far more fun than any MMO before it. The only other MMO that for me competes it for "fun" was City of Heroes and Villains. That MMO was amazing.

And still really confused why new MMOs often don't have underwater swimming...like such a basic feature that should be in every MMO lol. GW2 does of course, but a lot of MMOs don't include that lol.

Sephiroso · May 2018

TheScavenger said:

And still really confused why new MMOs often don't have underwater swimming...like such a basic feature that should be in every MMO lol.

because money. Usually questions like this always comes down to money.

Theocritus · May 2018

I had 3 really good MMO intros....EQ1, Anarchy Online (not at launch luckily), and WoW..... WoW was too easy but still enjoyed the world setting.

Shaigh · May 2018

I have to say swtor. Endgame was buggy, classes were unbalanced, world was kinda dull and it was sort of what I expected. I still ended up enjoying my 1.5 months playing the game far more than I thought I would.

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What mmo was the most pleasant surprise to you?

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거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다

Aloha Mr Hand !

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV