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What is it about L2?
Well, I have pretty much finished my "quest" to many of the other games I have tried or played in the past. Let me list what I have done since May. I reactivated my Sony station account and looked at SWG and EQII again. A big dull yuck there. I have Ryzom loaded right now, and its pretty good. I have Planetside going on the side also. (reserves program) I also am playing WoW with my wife a few nights a week. (sorry) I gave FFXI a retry last month, to group focused. Thats all in addition to all the games I have played over the years. (all of these games where reactivations for me, not new tries)
What is it about L2 that keeps drawing me back? Well after giving it some thought, it hit me.
FREEDOM of action.
Thats what L2 has over all these other games. (and the best graphics/artstyle of them all IMHO)
What am I babbling about?
In almost all of the above titles you play along a pre-chewed directed route. NPC's guide your every step. They overload the players with trivial kill task and delivery runs and walk the player through the entire game. Sure we have the same type of task but they do not hold our hands at all. We are not overwhelmed with 50 (yes, in EQII that is no exageration) silly task to do. Players are literally slaves to the NPC's
Not in L2. Our game promotes freedom of action on just about every level. If we choose to kill each other, we can. Although on average very few of us actually act on it, the choice is there. We are free to choose to succeed or fail at the economy. Most other games hold the players hands and furnish them with enough money to succeed if they follow the NPC's instructions (kill task)
We are free to rome our world. We have no level specific zones. We have a HUGE free and open world with many many spots to do our hunting. The variety is endless. (at least to mid levels) We are free to stand in one spot and grind for 20 levels (like I see some of you promote
) or wander around and find other places. You can't do that in EQII or WoW. You go where the game tells you to go next.
We have deverse choice of professions. We are not limited to 8 or 9 generic classes. We have many role specific classes that are different and unique from race to race.
The players are free to make an impact on the world. We drive the Guild vs Guild conflicts forward. We lay seige. We create the conflict, We change the face of our world not the NPC's.
So all in all, many of these other games like WoW and EQII have stripped the freedom out and turned players into little more then manned NPC deployed bots.
Comments
No thanks.
LoL,
Why do you even bother troll? Go play your little NPC directed games with safe little zones and be a good player and do what the NPC's say
Don't think or anything just keep up your cute little kill task. So keep up the good work, I'm sure your game will let you know when to do something new like raid or sit in a que to do something new with no risk of course. If there was risk someone might get their wittle feelings hurt.
Birds of a feather do indeed flock together
Yes they certainly do. You see, I also play WoW and and I must say (if truth be known) that I have never ever in about 4 years of playing MMO's run across a community so full of half - wits and morons who can hardly follow the NPC's instructions to begin with.(on the U.S. servers at least
) Yuppers, the Bnet babies are all in WoW, lol.
L2's "popularity
Since you want to wave around your epeen, only about 1.5 mil of those 6.5 are Americans. American players are still not buying into this whole MMO thing. It wasn't any U.S. game that has always held millions of players, it was L1 and L2. and FFXI coming in close Both still do --- for years now. American games have performed pathetically compared to Asian games. Look at big bad EQII with its, how many? 175K subs LoL. What waste of devs time that was. Maybe SWG.......not. How about AC1 or AC2? Hmmmm....maybe, well D&DO? Don't think so. You show me all the "better" U.S. made game. There are none. WoW is the sole contender. To add insult to injury, its far more popular overseas then it is in its home country.
Where do you think NCSoft and Webzen come up with all this money to publish all these games over the last few years? They grew it on trees? No, its because of the overwhelming success of their base games L1, L2 and MU. You can look at their profits online. That is what is driving U.S. companies to crank out all the half - finished, incomeplete, buggy games over the years, all the money the Asians are making. MMO's are failing in general in the Western market. The numbers clearly show that.
Here is a to link NCSofts company line. Its pretty safe to say NC is on the level. Its also accurracte to say that NC hasn't had the same level of success in the U.S. Then again, no one has lol.
http://www.ncsoft.com/eng/nccompany/history.asp
Here is their recent quarterly report, Ill bet EQII, SWG, D&Do, Horizons or any other games isn't pulling in a profit like that.
http://www.ncsoft.com/eng/ncpress/list.asp (page 2 item 55)
Its funny how when Blizzards says it has 6.5 million subs but only about 1.5 or maybe 2 million are in the U.S. everyone is waving the epeen around. When people hear that L1, L2, and FFXI have been in that range for years everyone says no way.
Here's a bit more to chew on...
http://www.mmorpgchart.com/
Now, I'm not bashing L2 per se.. keep that in mind, i was actually considering coming back to it before i remembered there was nothing for me to do but grind
Now other than that, I agree with alot of the things you said. Especially about the lack of good that is WoW hehe!
~I am going to rule the world someday, I promiseness
~
No, no, no...there is a WORLD of difference between the QUALITY story driven content of FFXI and moronic kill task of WoW. And yes I have played FFXI
Something I tried to point out on another post was this. Before WoW, EQ was always advertised as the largest pop MMO when it was in fact FFXI that ALAWAYS out-performed EQ. The reason then was because FFXI included Asian subs in its number. Now its ok for Blizzard to advertise that 6.5 million people are playing WoW but less then 20% of them are U.S. subscribers. Theres a word for this somewhere.......
Yeah, the grind is pretty tough but not as bad as it use to be from what I understand.
When it comes to class based systems, there is only so much you can do, so yes in a sense a class is a class. What seperates L2 from WoW is the variety. But thats no surprise lol.
Only open sandbox games with skill based systems really give you true freedom but the sandbox game is pretty much out and the arcade/MMO is in. There are only 2 or 3 left that really allow for that. Ryzom, UO, and AC as far as I know.
~I am going to rule the world someday, I promiseness
~
No problem, I know what its like to like and play a game the mainstream doesn't approve of.
In a descussion yesterday a guy named Rod_B broke down MMOs into groups. I really liked his subject breakdowns, the descriptions are mine. (flame away
)
arcade/casual, RPG/immersive and Sandbox/social. (please note my listings are example only not complete)
arcade/casual - we have games like WoW, SWG - nge, and GW. These games focus primarily on fast and accessable gameplay. Usually they have very linear and restrictive gameplay (from an MMORPG perspective) RPG and story take a backseat. Content is normally very shallow and weak normally being kill task based. The goal of these type games is to move forward in the mechanics (leveling) to reach assorted benchmarks so that one can perform assorted task like raids or PvP.
*RPG/Immersive style players will more then likely find these type of games basic and shallow.
*Sandbox/Social style players will not like the fact everything is scripted. ALL course of action is predetermined. Little or no freedom at all.
RPG/immersive - we have solid games like FFXI, DAoC, EQII, EQ....These games are creating worlds with emersive environments in which your character has a large range of freedom of action. Game mechanics can be restrictive however. L2 falls into this one although it is very heavily dependent on the social aspect, it isn't really a sandbox game. EQII has unexpectidly weak content for this group of games surprisingly. Usually the goal of these type games is to immerse into a world or story while moving along through the content and mechanics.
*Aracade/casuals -may find these games slow paced and sometimes not like the details, immersion and heavy socializing annoying. They generally will not like the depth which they will view as time consumming and unproductive.
*Sandbox/Socials - may find these game types restricting.
Sandbox/social. - we have games like UO and Ryzom. These style games are very open ended and leave almost all decissions in the players hands. They are usually wide open and free. Mechanics are usually very open. Very difficult games to pull off. Pre-made Content is usually NOT the focus of this type of game and very little in the form of "quest" and "kill task" usually exsist. Players generally enjoy the freedom. The goal of these type games is simply to be there and play, socialize and experience the deverse world. (its interesting to note that the old SWG WAS in this catagory of games up until the NGE in which the game was suddenly transformed into an Arcade/Casual game. The resulting fallout is still going on today, it is unlikely the game will survive)
*RPG/Immersive people sometime feel like something is "missing" but generally can adapt as they are use to playing in a more independent "free" environment.
*Aracade/casuals usually "don't get it" without clear scripted objectives from the game. Without specific direction from the game or clear benchmark goals like a "raid", Arcade/Casuals may not be able to adapt to "freedom". More then likely they will not see the point without clear pre-determined direction.
I've been playing since open beta and the grind isn't nearly as bad now as it was before.
When the game first started money was very tight so people typically didn't level with ss because you wouldn't have the cash to buy your gear. People would actually buy all the mid grade weapons and upgrade them as time went by. It was pretty common to do this even through c rgade. now people just make the jump from top ng to top d grade to top c as the opportunity arises. I didn't get full top d until I was level 43. It wasn't uncommon for archers to still be using gastra bows until level 52. I think I geared out in mid c grade (lux shop) at level 53 and top c and 58. Mobs gave less xp and had a worse drop rate back then, too. Anyone who has played since open beta/prelude is truely a veteran.
Anyways, you can imagine why people said the grind was so brutal. A lot of people who played during beta use this comparison when they talk about how bad the grind is. It is a million times easier now to reach your 60's and gear out. In fact, most people can gear out as soon as they hit their grade mastery. You kids have it easy.
New players get fanstastic buffs from the Newbie Helper NPC in game starting at level 8. This makes downtime to away until your mid-20's. Its so much faster to level early on now.
New players get the equipment exchange which did exist in the old days. Now you can turn in your no grade weapons and armor to the NPC and simply pay the difference to get new ones. In the old days you had to find a buyer for your current weapon/armor or sell it to the NPC for a huge loss.
The amount of adena and materials that drop from mob's has vastly increased since open beta/prelude. And the amount of adena you can charge to veteran players to purchase these low level materials has tripled since I played the last time.
The manor system now exists which wasn't there in the old days. Its basically a dwarf life spoil and sweep method that every player can use to farm certain materials. You buy seeds from the manor npc, plant those seeds in mobs before you kill them and then harvest the finished crop after they die. You take these harvested crops back to the manor npc and he'll give you materials in exchange. You can then sell those materials to veteran players for a huge profit margin. I had outfitted my newbie in top tier no grade armor and weapons by level 16 with no outside help at all by using the manor system. What a fantastic addition to the game.
The seven signs quest/event now exists. This is an ongoing event that resets every two weeks. It is a contest between two sides (dusk and dawn) to control certain seals. The winner of this contest has certain advantages during castle sieges which occur every two weeks. The by product of this event is special dungeons called catacombs and necropolis. In these dungeons you can kill mobs that drop seals. These seals can then be turned in for ancient adena. You can use ancient adena to upgrade your weapons (even after the newbie buffs wear out), buy enchant scrolls and otehr things. You can also sell the ancient adena to other players for regular adena if you so choose. Just another great way to make money and upgrade your equipment.
Overall, the game is far far better than it was during open beta and prelude. If anybody reading this played this game during open beta or prelude and didn't care for the game. I would strongly suggest you give it another try.
By the way, I do see adena farmers all the time. They don't seem as aggressive now as they were during the old days. I was routinely forced out of leveling areas but now they ignore me. Its much easier to coexist with them now. I didn't see the same amount of farmers in WoW but I think that is for a couple of reasons. First the game is instanced. Its easy for farmers to hide out in instances without ever being seen. Second, gold in WoW becomes pointless in the end game. Your equipment comes from bind on pickup raids. It can't be bought like it can in L2. This gives adena a lot more value in L2 than gold in WoW. Consequently, I doubt as many level 60's in WoW purchase gold as do players in L2. Its so extremely easy to make gold in WoW just using the auctioneer add on and buying low and selling high. Gold is so easy to get. Its easier now in L2 than before but it is definetly still a challenge.
I am one of the ones that played L2 in open beta and declared it a mindless grind.
I started playing it again since I was looking for a fantasy MMO to play and I didn't want to play WoW again.
I must say the low level grind isnt that bad anymore. The game is quite boring though if you stick to solo hunting but before 20 no parties will be found. After that hunting raid bosses can be quite interesting and takes away from the grind. So far I'm at 31 and intend to continue playing until at least my free month runs out.
I would agree, since I returned a few weeks ago I found my guild had broken up. With it being summer and all, spending lots of time with the kids and whatnot. Planning on a few trips also. I'm really not in the frame of mind for spending lots of hours tracking everyone down and finding out where to go. To much going on now. Its summer
When the weather turns cold I'll probably pick it up again (I'm not a skier).....here where I live that won't be long from now.
I've actually just been playing BF2 alot and the WoW BG's a little bit.
Well, it didn't last long. 2-3 months later i'm back in full swing. I don't realy know what it is, but there is just something that I love about this game.