Starting my sub; anyone still playing :-p

[Xilren's Twin]

Yes yes, I know.  Everyone hates it.  Nonetheless, having tried and stopped EQ2, and having put down Gothic2, fed my nostalga itch by getting an R6 channy in SB, finished Culdcept, and not wanting to addict my wallet back to MtGO, Im ready to resume DDO.  Taking a break for week has reset my "don't want to slog through the newbie quests yet again" button.

What can I say, I like the quests enough to play and wnat to see the others I never got to in beta; I like the small curve, and the downsides of the game either didn't bother me or are tolerable to me.

So, before I remake my cleric, anyone still subbed and is so what servers?

Xilren
PS Don't say I didn't warn you what it would be like 

[Endie]

My unsub finally took effect today, as did the trouble and strife's one.

[Xilren's Twin]

Holy biscuits batman! They really ramped up the difficulty in some quests since beta.  I finally did Irestone with my CL3 and there's only like 2 shrines total in it now which made it much harder.  Fucking hobgoblin clerics/shaman and otto's irresistable dance...

This morning when we a group in Delera's tomb and we got wiped twice.  Seem to be many more arcane skeletons and wraiths then I remember.  Oh, and Gary Gygax's voiceover (nice homage but the mans not an actor).

That being said, the server I'm on seems generally active no matter what time of day Im on, and am not having any problems getting groups.  Seems to be progressing along fine.

Xilren

[Xilren's Twin]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention but the quest chains now have really nice rewards for doing them all.  I did all 4 of the Waterworks quests and the reward of a choice of like 12 different named items, all of which were pretty good (course I blew it; picked bracers of +4 AC and of course they didn't stack with my armor; should taked the helmet that gave +1 wisdom and something else).  Same deal for the Seal of Shan-to-Kar which I finished this morning.  Had a hard time deciding between a Morning Star of the Elements and Unfinished Elemental Plate Armor.

Wonder what the rewards for the end of Delera's tomb series are...

Xilren

[Margalis]

Are you talking to anyone in particular or just yourself? 

[Samwise]

I'm paying attention.  Good to hear that they're giving snazzier rewards for the big quest chains.  I dislike the trend toward making everything tougher, though - I thought the difficulty at the end of alpha (when I started playing) was just about right, and it's gotten steadily tougher since then, presumably in an attempt to slow the catasses from finishing the game in two days.  Sigh.

[CmdrSlack]

I'll be resubbing before the content patch in July, I think.

It all really depends if I have the time to play, things are a tad busy in RL land lately.

[Xilren's Twin]

Are you talking to anyone in particular or just yourself? 

The really scary part is when I argue with myself.

On a more serious note, how many people on this board are actively playing ANY mmorpg at the moment.  It seems we have some Eve players and well, thats about it (Eve bored me silly).  People jump into anything new like the ATiTD tale or Bang Howdy beta, but again, very few stick even beyond 7 days.  We go through games like crack addicted ferrets with 1 week attention spans.  That usually enough time to decide if you like something enought to give it a month, true, but so many of the choices out there are just so "meh", with not much hope on the horizon.  A game from Funcom is the next best hope? *shiver*

I'm playing DDO again b/c I like it despite its limtations (and probably part of this one side conversation is intended to keep people considering the possibility it may be worth subbing for a month for differencer factor alone).  I gave DDO long enough a break from beta to forget most of the details of the quests  (plus miss predictable launch issues) so it's fresh enough to be enjoyable to me and it's very different than WoW and EQ2.  I LIKE playing it edgy and soloing through quests as a cleric b/c I treat them like puzzles. The player population seems more mature to me, probably  b/c most of the doods, pvp'er, crafters, and powergaming set have already washed out when they realized what DDO wasn't.  The only people left are people who take it for what it is.  Even random pick up groups with voice chat have all been fine (something you couldn't pay me to do in most mmorpgs).  My personal goal is try and do all of the quests and stay away from spoilers to max my enjoyment of them.  If that happens before they add new content, then i'll unsub.

YMMV.
Xilren

[Rasix]

On a more serious note, how many people on this board are actively playing ANY mmorpg at the moment.  It seems we have some Eve players and well, thats about it (Eve bored me silly). 

I'd wager quite a few people are playing WoW, although not all with each other.  Some are probably playing EQ2, CoH, and hell we've got people playing UO.  I'd even guess that we have people currently playing Auto Assault, Shadowbane, Planetside or even EQ1.

If I wasn't playing EVE right now I'd probably either be playing WoW casually or trying out EQ2 and then likely going back to WoW casually.  There's always that DDO trial I never tried or trying ATiTD 3 so Signe can kill my goddamn camels again.

I find it odd that the perception of people on this site is that we're a bunch of bitchy MMO vets that no longer play these games when I find out seemingly every other day that poster X has been in an EQ raid guild for the past 6 years.             

[Arthur_Parker]

On a more serious note, how many people on this board are actively playing ANY mmorpg at the moment.  It seems we have some Eve players and well, thats about it (Eve bored me silly).  People jump into anything new like the ATiTD tale or Bang Howdy beta, but again, very few stick even beyond 7 days.  We go through games like crack addicted ferrets with 1 week attention spans.  That usually enough time to decide if you like something enought to give it a month, true, but so many of the choices out there are just so "meh", with not much hope on the horizon.  A game from Funcom is the next best hope? *shiver*

I played WoW for over 6 months.  I'm currently playing a mmorpg called Call of Duty 2, character advancement is a bit limited but there's zero grinding.  On a custom server I get a frag grenade for 10 kills, a smoke grenade at 20 and a 2nd frag grenade at 30.  I think it's the best mmorpg on the market and now firmly believe the M1 Garand will magically improve any game.

Didn't want to start a new thread, but here's the latest forum account numbers for the DDO official forums.  I think week 9 was the start of the free trials, the next few weeks should prove interesting.

1st  Week = 11,133
2nd  Week =  3,384
3rd  Week =  2,496
4th  Week =  1,835
5th  Week =  1,263
6th  Week =  1,372
7th  Week =  1,016
8th  Week =    721
9th  Week =    713
10th Week =    660
11th Week =    656
12th Week =    607
13th Week =    554
14th Week =    413
Total = 26823


First DDO user to register, thur 23rf Feb
Last user, wed 31st May.  End of 14th week.

[HaemishM]

On a more serious note, how many people on this board are actively playing ANY mmorpg at the moment.  It seems we have some Eve players and well, thats about it (Eve bored me silly).  People jump into anything new like the ATiTD tale or Bang Howdy beta, but again, very few stick even beyond 7 days.  We go through games like crack addicted ferrets with 1 week attention spans.  That usually enough time to decide if you like something enought to give it a month, true, but so many of the choices out there are just so "meh", with not much hope on the horizon.  A game from Funcom is the next best hope? *shiver*

Nothing's really struck me. I keep thinking about restarting WoW, but can't get myself motivated. I tried the free Matrix Online trial for about 1-2 hours one night and haven't gone back since. I downloaded Bang! Howdy, but haven't even made it through the tutorial. The only gaming I'm doing has been X-Men Legends on the X-Box (finished it), and some of the X-Box sports games.

But the Movies expansion comes out Tuesday, and I guess that's really what I'm waiting on.

[Modern Angel]

Playing WoW myself though I'm always on the lookout for a "secondary" mmog. I like to have a little variety so I've generally kept a sub to something else over the past couple years of WoW. The problem is that those second games just pale in comparison; there may be as much fun lurking in them but not as much polish and, dammit, I've discovered polish matters. I want to like EQ2 and CoH/V and all those others I've tried but I do something in those games and think, "WoW just plays so much more SMOOTHLY than this."

Still log onto GW from time to time but I'm playing it like I would a FPS: in, out, log out, come back in a few weeks. I have a feeling that WAR is going to be the best of the next bunch though I'm hoping against hope Conan is just as good.

And fuck Auto Assault. There's more entertainment on the boards with everyone flailing around talking about how things are going to pick up ANY DAY NOW YEP ANY DAY than in the entire game.

[stray]

Wow does have polish, I'll give it that. Though I think it could learn a few things from CoH (and vice versa). CoH may have a longer grind, but it has a few things that make it a little less dreary -- Quest waypoints pop up on the map, the LFG tab is probably the most convenient I've seen anywhere, a larger number of indoor missions (though I admit, some are copy and paste shitty), remote handling of quest contacts, faster traveling speeds at early levels, etc..

[Modern Angel]

WoW is all polish for me. There are individual things that individual games do better but the whole package isn't as nice for me as WoW. WAR comes out with meaningful PvP, good character advancement and (wait for it) that level of polish it'll be my main game.

You never know how much polish counts until you find a game with as much of it as WoW has.

[stray]

You never know how much polish counts until you find a game with as much of it as WoW has.

It's a good step and all, but it doesn't count all that much to me. There's hundreds of games out there that have more polish than WoW has.....And at the same time function as actual games. I'll get stoked when an MMO comes out that has both polish and fun.

[Righ]

You'd be hard pressed to find an MMORPG with more Polish than Sigonyth. 

[Modern Angel]

You never know how much polish counts until you find a game with as much of it as WoW has.

It's a good step and all, but it doesn't count all that much to me. There's hundreds of games out there that have more polish than WoW has.....And at the same time function as actual games. I'll get stoked when an MMO comes out that has both polish and fun.

Fun is completely subjective, polish is less so. I used to be a guy who didn't put much stock in polish and was perfectly content to play hex map wargames until my eyes bled. It just counts more for me in MMOGS than in other games for some reason.

[stray]

Fun is completely subjective, polish is less so.

Yeah, I understand. All I'm saying though is that that kind of polish, and then some, is in everything I play already. I can't get excited about an MMO just for that. I hate just about everything else in MMO's as well.


[edit]

Oh yeah....To answer Xilren's question, I'm not playing anything. I resubbed my CoH account a couple of weeks ago just to see if my names were ganked (though I guess it wouldn't matter anyways...), but I didn't play much. Then I tried Bang Howdy for a few hours. Tried Eve (again) and still didn't like it. Before that, I hadn't looked at a game in 6 months.

In fact, it was DDO that made me stay away for that long. I was jaded enough already, but I was expecting DDO would have had enough novel ideas to shake me out of that.

I'm still interested in the genre for two things though (probably the same two things as many of us here): People and potential. And I'm still up for checking out any new beta that comes along, just to see if they have any of that "potential".....But that's about it.

[Xilren's Twin]

Oh yeah....To answer Xilren's question, I'm not playing anything. I resubbed my CoH account a couple of weeks ago just to see if my names were ganked (though I guess it wouldn't matter anyways...), but I didn't play much. Then I tried Bang Howdy for a few hours. Tried Eve (again) and still didn't like it. Before that, I hadn't looked at a game in 6 months.

In fact, it was DDO that made me stay away for that long. I was jaded enough already, but I was expecting DDO would have had enough novel ideas to shake me out of that.

And to bring us back to a full mmorpg circle of life.....

DDO: Made it level 4.5 by doing the Assualt on Splinter Skull Keep series of 7 linked quests this weekend.  Starts at CR3 and goes up to CR 7 and takes ~3 hours to run through them all if you have a good group.  Actually made me stay up later than I needed to which doesnt happen much with games anymore.  That was some fun shit, and the overall rewards are very good.  Picked some +3 STR gloves and a +2 Wis +20% Nullification enhancement necklace.  If I do it again ill pick the +3 CON cloak or +3 Dex ring.

Xilren 

[Llava]

I resubbed my CoH account a couple of weeks ago just to see if my names were ganked (though I guess it wouldn't matter anyways...), but I didn't play much.

Name policy was revoked.  You have a name, it's yours forever until further notice.

[Hoax]

COH - still has a boring long terrible grind?  No thanks.  Likewise for L2 (which I'd love to try because the siege system sounded interesting).

WoW - I just don't care, everyone I want to play with is so established in the game I would never see them.  It would be another 3 month grind to gear myself to the point that I could at least play BG's in the org groups with them.  I may resub for the expansion or before the expansion take a new char to 60 but I wouldn't count on it.

Right now I just dont have any time or will for serious gaming.  I have been playing zero committment games for the past 3 months or so only.  I'm on a Gunbound kick atm when I'm too tired from work or hockey to do anything interesting on the internet and I dont feel like watching any anime.  If that wasn't the case I would be playing EvE.

MMO's dont suck any more then they have, but for a long time the suck was covered in a candy shell of "newness" that masked the taste.  Now adays the shell has melted in my hands before I even finish the install process.  On with the next generation!!  Go innovation!

If I was a "real" gamer I would probably go try Face of Mankind which is officially released these days.  I also could go gind some Space Cowboy and there are a few interesting Korean and Japanese beta's I could get into if I felt like doing some ip-proxy translation/walkthrough sites.  But these days I just can't be bothered.  I may end up buying a console (first one since ps1), which is a thought that fills me with great dread.

[Rhonstet]

Just cancelled.  New content and adventures is coming out too slow, a lot slower then we were promised.

The only MMO I play with anything resembling frequency is Planetside, and that only as a soloist.  Its the only thing SOE ever did right, or at least didn't do wrong. 

When the WoW expansion comes out, I have no doubt that I will be back, if only to see the new world.

I suspect the 'slump' effect is because the new games that have all come out lately have been mediocre, at best.  I can't begin to count the number of people I met in DDO or AA who mentioned how they were looking for a replacement to WoW.  That's a high standard to top.