I have 3 fairly steady old school MMOs that I will most likely play in the next year......
Anarchy Online
Everquest 1
Everquest 2
They usually only last for 1-4 months, mainly because I end up playing solo 99% of the time, so it can get boring fairly quick......I will also try one of a myriad of older MMOs but they never stick for any length of time. I think the post WoW MMORPGs just arent my style.
Similar. My 3 or 4 are different but they tend to run in 3 month cycles. FF14 for 3 months, BDO for 3 months, ESO for 3 months. There are MMO's that I haven't played in years that I 'maintain'. LotRO I log in to and pay housing maintenance. EVE Online I log in to and check asset value. The three mentioned, I actually play though. It has always been about character affinity. I made memories with a character or characters and those memories had value for any given reason.
That observation isn't exclusive to MMO's. Scampering around with Nora in Fallout 4, Kassandra in AC Odyssey, Dalinsia Snowhunter in Conan Exiles. They made an impression and I would return as a result.
Ultima Online will always be my top go to game. It just offers something completely different than any other MMO has and that’s the living virtual world. Other than a few other titles I can think of, it gives me the sense of absolute freedom to do as you please. Unfortunate it doesn’t really work well when there’s not much of a community and when the official game has tried to itemized the game.
This year I’ve been wanting to change things up though. I’m trying to jump into some older titles that I missed back when I was knee deep into UO. Titles like Asheron’s Call and DAoC. AC has felt really good tbh, Should have really given that a try back when it released as I feel like it aged well and kind of gives you that freedom that UO gave me.
/played-mmorpgs
Total time played:9125 Days, 21 Hours, 29 Minutes, 27 Seconds Time played this level: 39 Days, 1 Hour, 24 Minutes, 5 Seconds
I play Lotro almost eveynight. Why I like playing with the wife and that is the only MMO She will play. Currently when she is not around I have been playing New World and having a good time but i am only like 100 in the crafing stuff and lvl 32
Uncharted Waters Origin, because you can't min-max the fun out of the game. I don't just mean that you shouldn't because it won't be fun. I actually mean that you literally can't, at least other than by putting everything else on hold to try to win one of the two-week competitions.
You know how a lot of MMORPGs make it so that in order to do progress, the optimal thing to do is to loop one thing endlessly? Farm the mobs in this particular spot, or run this particular dungeon a bunch of times, or whatever. In extreme cases, people sometimes figure out to create an instance, kill two mobs, then reset the instance, and repeat that for hours at a time.
You don't have to play that way if you don't want to. But if you just do what seems fun, then you progress far, far more slowly than if you turned the game into horrible grinding. Don't you hate that?
UWO actually breaks that in two ways. One is that there isn't a canonical set of goals for players to achieve. It's very open-ended, and players can, should, and commonly do have wildly different goals of what they want to do in the game. That's not just true for mid-levels, but remains true at the top end.
The other is that for pretty much any reasonable set of goals, the optimal strategy to get there is not to loop one thing endlessly. Rather, it's to do a lot of different things each day. And often a different collection of things from one day to the next. Even if you're obsessively trying to mix/max something, there are a bunch of things constantly changing in the game that make it so that the optimal way to do X is constantly changing.
When it came out, it was brutalized on the interwebs. Has it improved?
Yes and no. Everything that I said above was also true at launch, though people didn't know it yet.
There is a major new content patch every four weeks, and that has cumulatively meant that the game has a lot more content now than at launch. There have also been a lot of bug fixes and quality of life improvements, though the game wasn't in a very bad state on either of those counts, even on launch day.
That said, if the game were to launch today in the state that it is today, it would get about the same brutal reviews that it did at launch and for the same reasons:
1) An MMORPG that has combat but isn't primarily about combat is always going to be a niche game. It doesn't help that the combat is mediocre. One could argue that having auto-combat available is the most important feature of the combat, as it means that you don't have to fuss with it very often. Mostly you just turn on consecutive combat, then go AFK for an hour or whatever and come back to higher level characters. Ultimately, if you don't like exploration or trading, then you're not going to like the game, and it really is that simple.
2) If you look through the item mall without understanding what things mean, the game looks very pay to win. A lot of people log in, see the item mall, see the gachas, ragequit, and leave a nasty review. That would happen today for the same reasons that it happened at launch.
3) If you haven't played any of the Uncharted Waters games (including UW Online and the old console games), then the game is just very different from what you're used to. Things that people think they know what they mean from familiarity with other games don't actually mean what they think.
For example, if you log in for the first time and see your admiral's chronicle, it says go here, talk to this person, do that, and so forth. It may look very on-rails. If you focus on the chronicle, then after a while, you'll hit a wall where you're not high enough level to continue. That doesn't mean that you need to grind to level up before you can continue. It means that you're not supposed to focus purely on your admiral's chronicle as opposed to mixing in a lot of other activities.
People see the energy system and think that you can't play very much without running out of energy, or that you have to be a whale and buy energy to progress at a reasonable rate. That's what a lot of mobile games do. But the game doesn't sell energy at all, and only a handful of things in the game require energy. Even an account that was actively played for 24 hours per day by people rotating in shifts would only infrequently be limited by energy--and not much more so than an account that is only online for an hour per day.
People especially see the gachas and freak out. Having gachas selling S-grade mates for real money, and at absurdly expensive prices, looks very pay to win. For comparison, the free gacha (bought with in-game currency, not real money) has no S-grade mates at all, and A-grade only at very low rates (0.0311% each). What people don't realize is that the C-grade mates in the free gacha can be trained up to S-grade, or eventually SS-grade (though this is more limited), and those are the mates that high end players heavily rely upon.
4) The game really takes a different mentality to play than most other games. You're surely used to logging into a game, actively doing stuff for a while, and then logging out. When you're logged out, nothing about your character changes until the next time you log in. If that's how you try to play UWO, then you probably won't like it very well, as you'll progress way too slowly.
UWO is a semi-idle game. It's not a pure idle game akin to Adventure Capitalist, but there are a lot of situations where you set something up, then go AFK for a while, then come back in 20 minutes or an hour or whatever. Leave the game running for hours at a time, actively playing it part of that time, but just leaving it running in the background much of the time. You can stare at the screen the whole time, but you really shouldn't, as you'll get very bored.
Arranging your plans such that you do the stuff that requires you to actively play while you have time to do that, but are in position to leave the game running for consecutive combat or land exploration or long-distance travel or whatever while you're doing other things in real-life, is an important part of playing the game well. Which is to say, you can and should fit the game around your own real-life schedule, whatever it is, and the game will generally accommodate you unless you can only infrequently touch a computer at all.
Thx, I appreciate the detailed info. I'll check it out.
DDO - was and still remains the best dungeon running MMO out there, and still scratches that Dungeons and Dragons feel like no other game on the market. While I wish it was run by a more competent team, ergo: Less Buggy, Running Smoother, a lot of what kills DDO is the mechanical issues and the art (Graphics/Animation), if they got that sorted, it could have been one of the top 5 MMOs out on the market today, but it just feels like the team is this half-assed jumble fuck of meh that is keeping it going, and I highly doubt I am off in that assessment to be honest
GW2 - Best overall casual MMO out there, amazing art, animation, very solid game, the team at Anet that is running the show is highly competent and skilled at what they do, the art team seems to be a hit or miss clusterfuck, where they will put in for dye channels to a jock strap, but not any dye channels or sell cosmetic skins to a giant green engineers pet, so we all have these 9 foot ugly ass green-mech-things following us around. None the less, it has Amazing open world events, and overall a huge amount of fun regardless if you are in a guild of 500 people, running a small team of friends, or just running solo, it's a game that you can enjoy at your own pace. While they have shot themselves in the Ass by putting in Raids and Strikes, and all this larger forced grouping content, they have at least redeemed themselves by not making it needed anymore by putting in PvE Legendary Armor, and thus returning to their roots of being a great casuals game
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Yes and no. Everything that I said above was also true at launch, though people didn't know it yet.
There is a major new content patch every four weeks, and that has cumulatively meant that the game has a lot more content now than at launch. There have also been a lot of bug fixes and quality of life improvements, though the game wasn't in a very bad state on either of those counts, even on launch day.
That said, if the game were to launch today in the state that it is today, it would get about the same brutal reviews that it did at launch and for the same reasons:
1) An MMORPG that has combat but isn't primarily about combat is always going to be a niche game. It doesn't help that the combat is mediocre. One could argue that having auto-combat available is the most important feature of the combat, as it means that you don't have to fuss with it very often. Mostly you just turn on consecutive combat, then go AFK for an hour or whatever and come back to higher level characters. Ultimately, if you don't like exploration or trading, then you're not going to like the game, and it really is that simple.
2) If you look through the item mall without understanding what things mean, the game looks very pay to win. A lot of people log in, see the item mall, see the gachas, ragequit, and leave a nasty review. That would happen today for the same reasons that it happened at launch.
3) If you haven't played any of the Uncharted Waters games (including UW Online and the old console games), then the game is just very different from what you're used to. Things that people think they know what they mean from familiarity with other games don't actually mean what they think.
For example, if you log in for the first time and see your admiral's chronicle, it says go here, talk to this person, do that, and so forth. It may look very on-rails. If you focus on the chronicle, then after a while, you'll hit a wall where you're not high enough level to continue. That doesn't mean that you need to grind to level up before you can continue. It means that you're not supposed to focus purely on your admiral's chronicle as opposed to mixing in a lot of other activities.
People see the energy system and think that you can't play very much without running out of energy, or that you have to be a whale and buy energy to progress at a reasonable rate. That's what a lot of mobile games do. But the game doesn't sell energy at all, and only a handful of things in the game require energy. Even an account that was actively played for 24 hours per day by people rotating in shifts would only infrequently be limited by energy--and not much more so than an account that is only online for an hour per day.
People especially see the gachas and freak out. Having gachas selling S-grade mates for real money, and at absurdly expensive prices, looks very pay to win. For comparison, the free gacha (bought with in-game currency, not real money) has no S-grade mates at all, and A-grade only at very low rates (0.0311% each). What people don't realize is that the C-grade mates in the free gacha can be trained up to S-grade, or eventually SS-grade (though this is more limited), and those are the mates that high end players heavily rely upon.
4) The game really takes a different mentality to play than most other games. You're surely used to logging into a game, actively doing stuff for a while, and then logging out. When you're logged out, nothing about your character changes until the next time you log in. If that's how you try to play UWO, then you probably won't like it very well, as you'll progress way too slowly.
UWO is a semi-idle game. It's not a pure idle game akin to Adventure Capitalist, but there are a lot of situations where you set something up, then go AFK for a while, then come back in 20 minutes or an hour or whatever. Leave the game running for hours at a time, actively playing it part of that time, but just leaving it running in the background much of the time. You can stare at the screen the whole time, but you really shouldn't, as you'll get very bored.
Arranging your plans such that you do the stuff that requires you to actively play while you have time to do that, but are in position to leave the game running for consecutive combat or land exploration or long-distance travel or whatever while you're doing other things in real-life, is an important part of playing the game well. Which is to say, you can and should fit the game around your own real-life schedule, whatever it is, and the game will generally accommodate you unless you can only infrequently touch a computer at all.
Thx, I appreciate the detailed info. I'll check it out.
Make sure that you see my Steam guides. Especially look at the tips for new players one:
That has a lot of things that are useful to know very early on, but not immediately obvious.
By default, the game will nudge you toward the Atlantic Ocean server, which allows open PVP and red gem investment (i.e., pay real money to flip ports to your guild and country). If you don't care for either of those, then the Utopia Ocean server completely disables both. I play on the Utopia Ocean server.
On the Utopia Ocean server, most of the top Portuguese players are in the CsdaIndia guild. Most of the top players for all other nations are in Old Sailors. The latter guild is selective, so you can't join until you're very high level. You can join CsdaIndia at level 1, but the guild does require members to play as Portugal rather than other nations. That's the default if you choose Joao as your starter admiral. You'll get all five starter admirals for free by playing the game anyway, so your initial choice is just which one you want first. There are only three guilds on the server that own very many ports, which include the two mentioned above, plus one that is some sort of foreign characters that I can't transcribe here.
I resubbed to FFXIV; because frankly, there is nothing better. Though many of different opinions on what the best MMORPG is to them, I think FF14 has the positive vibes and quality other games do not. I have been wanting to try other MMORPG's; but there is none. I don't know of any that is not finished, or is finished but total garbage, or I have never played before. I like high fantasy and scifi. I have no love for PvP, though I don't mind it as a option. I have tried some classics, but they didn't appeal to me, or annoyed me too much.
Ultima Online will always be my top go to game. It just offers something completely different than any other MMO has and that’s the living virtual world. Other than a few other titles I can think of, it gives me the sense of absolute freedom to do as you please. Unfortunate it doesn’t really work well when there’s not much of a community and when the official game has tried to itemized the game.
This year I’ve been wanting to change things up though. I’m trying to jump into some older titles that I missed back when I was knee deep into UO. Titles like Asheron’s Call and DAoC. AC has felt really good tbh, Should have really given that a try back when it released as I feel like it aged well and kind of gives you that freedom that UO gave me.
Yeah, UO was by far the best, in my opinion. That "freedom in a living world" part, and the socialization that it enhanced to the extreme, that can only be exceeded by adding to that concept.
Fractured Online does seem to be another version of this. But some of the choices, while fine, miss the possibilities. For example, not needing arrows. This takes away from carrying needed inventory, a part of the preparation game play. And their choice of how to make things, going to a creation screen and it's just there if you have to tools and skills.
In UO, you had tools that you simply used on something (trees to gather wood, or ingots to craft things, etc.) This removes a possibility that even UO didn't make use of, that I think would be great game play. That would be trying tools on unexpected things to see if anything happens. And example of what I mean as "possibilities" would be to use a butcher knife on a bone to carve a word as a secret message, or even to make a magical item. Or another example, use a knife on a carving to discover a secret compartment with something of value. A proper design would include hints that you can get something by trying these things. (Bones with words carved on them in ruins, if you look closely, perhaps with a perception skill. A symbol carved in a wall that you might "explore" with tools as another hint.) Those hints might even be hinted at through tomes and scroll stories.
I have a lot of dreams like this, and the lack of this kind of development is a big reason I don't play games, and have recently pretty much lost interest. But I still check around from time to time.
If you like UO, you would probably like Fractured Online, although you may want to wait until the next patch releases (any day now) and check population.
One thing that occurred to me just the other day was that in FO you craft your own magical gear and it just such a refreshing change from running raids dozens of times to get a currency that can be exchanged for a pair of boots. The best gear (the only gear) in the game is made by players.
The population has dropped waiting for this patch, although, many that left shouldn't have been there in the first place.
If you like UO, you would probably like Fractured Online, although you may want to wait until the next patch releases (any day now) and check population.
One thing that occurred to me just the other day was that in FO you craft your own magical gear and it just such a refreshing change from running raids dozens of times to get a currency that can be exchanged for a pair of boots. The best gear (the only gear) in the game is made by players.
The population has dropped waiting for this patch, although, many that left shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I just opened my 5th account (for housing plots).
This is a feature I highly agree on: player crafted gear that surpasses any RNG crap you may find. I don't mind the dungeon grind, that makes gearing possible through the work, without relying on stupid RNG time wasting crap like in Diablo 4. I want to go and do the work and be rewarded; not, do the work and maybe, slightly be rewarded. It is artificial time sinks. It shows the lack of thought and talent a dev studio has. Is there a place for it? Maybe, but what people want is control, not to be controlled.
ESO for me. Recently returned after missing last three expansions and nine DLC's. Tons of new content which is almost overwhelming but its just the perfect game for me right now and offers me things I like (great main story, companions, housing, exploration).
If you like UO, you would probably like Fractured Online, although you may want to wait until the next patch releases (any day now) and check population.
One thing that occurred to me just the other day was that in FO you craft your own magical gear and it just such a refreshing change from running raids dozens of times to get a currency that can be exchanged for a pair of boots. The best gear (the only gear) in the game is made by players.
The population has dropped waiting for this patch, although, many that left shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I just opened my 5th account (for housing plots).
This is a feature I highly agree on: player crafted gear that surpasses any RNG crap you may find. I don't mind the dungeon grind, that makes gearing possible through the work, without relying on stupid RNG time wasting crap like in Diablo 4. I want to go and do the work and be rewarded; not, do the work and maybe, slightly be rewarded. It is artificial time sinks. It shows the lack of thought and talent a dev studio has. Is there a place for it? Maybe, but what people want is control, not to be controlled.
Getting the materials can be a quest in itself. In FO, there are no weapon/armor/gear drops of any sort.
That said, it isn't the preferred experience for most folks. When you look at the dress up contest that is FFIVX you realize most people just want to fantasize about a wardrobe, which is fine, but it isn't for me.
If you like UO, you would probably like Fractured Online, although you may want to wait until the next patch releases (any day now) and check population.
One thing that occurred to me just the other day was that in FO you craft your own magical gear and it just such a refreshing change from running raids dozens of times to get a currency that can be exchanged for a pair of boots. The best gear (the only gear) in the game is made by players.
The population has dropped waiting for this patch, although, many that left shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I just opened my 5th account (for housing plots).
There's a pretty long list of things I want in an MMORPG. I'll revisit FO at some point, and in the meantime I'll keep an open mind. Enshrouded is another one I'm curious about. At the present rate of new games, there may be more.
It seems to me that we're into that period where the old games aren't enough, and the direction now is to make something "different." As in game play options more than cinematically different, for me. I want to go beyond just great Hack+Slash, into "large scale Worldly" (UO serves as a great foundation) with playable Lore and a lot of discovery and advanced social interactions. I might settle for less, most certainly will settle for "not perfect", but only time will tell.
There's a pretty long list of things I want in an MMORPG. I'll revisit FO at some point, and in the meantime I'll keep an open mind.
I'd recommend waiting on FO, to be honest.
I love it and will continue to play but the population is now down to a few dozen I'd wager - I'd put it on your list to check back in 6 months.
If they manage to get in the promised features I think it will do well. They need to release the demon planet ASAP.
The next patch (due anytime) is a huge rebalance, introduces potions, and some events (I think they plan to have ghosts invade player towns). That patch will help, but much left to do.
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Similar.
My 3 or 4 are different but they tend to run in 3 month cycles.
FF14 for 3 months,
BDO for 3 months,
ESO for 3 months.
There are MMO's that I haven't played in years that I 'maintain'. LotRO I log in to and pay housing maintenance. EVE Online I log in to and check asset value. The three mentioned, I actually play though.
It has always been about character affinity. I made memories with a character or characters and those memories had value for any given reason.
That observation isn't exclusive to MMO's. Scampering around with Nora in Fallout 4, Kassandra in AC Odyssey, Dalinsia Snowhunter in Conan Exiles. They made an impression and I would return as a result.
Total time played: 9125 Days, 21 Hours, 29 Minutes, 27 Seconds
Time played this level: 39 Days, 1 Hour, 24 Minutes, 5 Seconds
GW2 - Best overall casual MMO out there, amazing art, animation, very solid game, the team at Anet that is running the show is highly competent and skilled at what they do, the art team seems to be a hit or miss clusterfuck, where they will put in for dye channels to a jock strap, but not any dye channels or sell cosmetic skins to a giant green engineers pet, so we all have these 9 foot ugly ass green-mech-things following us around. None the less, it has Amazing open world events, and overall a huge amount of fun regardless if you are in a guild of 500 people, running a small team of friends, or just running solo, it's a game that you can enjoy at your own pace. While they have shot themselves in the Ass by putting in Raids and Strikes, and all this larger forced grouping content, they have at least redeemed themselves by not making it needed anymore by putting in PvE Legendary Armor, and thus returning to their roots of being a great casuals game
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3121861290
That has a lot of things that are useful to know very early on, but not immediately obvious.
By default, the game will nudge you toward the Atlantic Ocean server, which allows open PVP and red gem investment (i.e., pay real money to flip ports to your guild and country). If you don't care for either of those, then the Utopia Ocean server completely disables both. I play on the Utopia Ocean server.
On the Utopia Ocean server, most of the top Portuguese players are in the CsdaIndia guild. Most of the top players for all other nations are in Old Sailors. The latter guild is selective, so you can't join until you're very high level. You can join CsdaIndia at level 1, but the guild does require members to play as Portugal rather than other nations. That's the default if you choose Joao as your starter admiral. You'll get all five starter admirals for free by playing the game anyway, so your initial choice is just which one you want first. There are only three guilds on the server that own very many ports, which include the two mentioned above, plus one that is some sort of foreign characters that I can't transcribe here.
Fractured Online does seem to be another version of this. But some of the choices, while fine, miss the possibilities.
For example, not needing arrows. This takes away from carrying needed inventory, a part of the preparation game play.
And their choice of how to make things, going to a creation screen and it's just there if you have to tools and skills.
In UO, you had tools that you simply used on something (trees to gather wood, or ingots to craft things, etc.)
This removes a possibility that even UO didn't make use of, that I think would be great game play. That would be trying tools on unexpected things to see if anything happens.
And example of what I mean as "possibilities" would be to use a butcher knife on a bone to carve a word as a secret message, or even to make a magical item.
Or another example, use a knife on a carving to discover a secret compartment with something of value.
A proper design would include hints that you can get something by trying these things.
(Bones with words carved on them in ruins, if you look closely, perhaps with a perception skill. A symbol carved in a wall that you might "explore" with tools as another hint.)
Those hints might even be hinted at through tomes and scroll stories.
I have a lot of dreams like this, and the lack of this kind of development is a big reason I don't play games, and have recently pretty much lost interest. But I still check around from time to time.
Once upon a time....
I find them reliably enjoyable.
One thing that occurred to me just the other day was that in FO you craft your own magical gear and it just such a refreshing change from running raids dozens of times to get a currency that can be exchanged for a pair of boots. The best gear (the only gear) in the game is made by players.
The population has dropped waiting for this patch, although, many that left shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I just opened my 5th account (for housing plots).
This is a feature I highly agree on: player crafted gear that surpasses any RNG crap you may find. I don't mind the dungeon grind, that makes gearing possible through the work, without relying on stupid RNG time wasting crap like in Diablo 4. I want to go and do the work and be rewarded; not, do the work and maybe, slightly be rewarded. It is artificial time sinks. It shows the lack of thought and talent a dev studio has. Is there a place for it? Maybe, but what people want is control, not to be controlled.
In FO, there are no weapon/armor/gear drops of any sort.
That said, it isn't the preferred experience for most folks. When you look at the dress up contest that is FFIVX you realize most people just want to fantasize about a wardrobe, which is fine, but it isn't for me.
Enshrouded is another one I'm curious about.
At the present rate of new games, there may be more.
It seems to me that we're into that period where the old games aren't enough, and the direction now is to make something "different." As in game play options more than cinematically different, for me.
I want to go beyond just great Hack+Slash, into "large scale Worldly" (UO serves as a great foundation) with playable Lore and a lot of discovery and advanced social interactions.
I might settle for less, most certainly will settle for "not perfect", but only time will tell.
Once upon a time....
I love it and will continue to play but the population is now down to a few dozen I'd wager - I'd put it on your list to check back in 6 months.
If they manage to get in the promised features I think it will do well.
They need to release the demon planet ASAP.
The next patch (due anytime) is a huge rebalance, introduces potions, and some events (I think they plan to have ghosts invade player towns). That patch will help, but much left to do.