f13.net

I've been out of the MMO market for about 2 years now and I've got that itch again.  What game would you guys recommend?

I was looking through the huge list of MMO's available and I'm not sure which to play.

I was thinking about either...

WoW
WAR
AoC
Cabal Online

I honestly am not sure though.  I used to play LOTRO and really really enjoyed it, but that account got taken from me by my damn ex-wife and I don't feel like starting over.  I'd rather start in a new game.  I've also played EQ2, DAoC, and countless others.

I'm just hoping to join a game where I can maybe play with some of you guys from here and we can team up.  Thank you for any/all suggestions!

We should all go back to playing UO on a free server to camp IDOCs at 2 AM.

What kind of experience are you looking for?  I'd suggest EVE Online cause I think it is the best MMO on the market right now, but if you aren't in for a rough experience (that is worth it in the end), and just want something to mess around in, EVE probably isn't your best bet.

I hear EVE Is real easy to pick up.  :why_so_serious:

I don't know what Cabal is, but I'd say WoW over the other two. /shrug

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Is the game bad or something?

Let x be a Korean Grinder. 
Therefore, x is a bad game.

The answer is yes.

If you haven't played WoW, give it a try.  It's always fun to level your first toon in most games.  At max level it depends on who you're guilded with.  The best advice is to find free trials and give them a try. 

depends what you want

PvP: Eve

PvE: WoW, LotRO, EQ2

everyone will give you different feedback on their communities

Runes of Magic is a free WOW clone that has pretty good quality and there is no grind.

And it's free.

I just had a large group of friend reinstall AoC under claims that apparently a lot of issues from launch have been corrected. Most noteably, Necromancers lagging out everyone that can see them by having 10 pets summoned or something like that. But also bunches of those crap. I never played it, but I can report back in a few weeks if they're still playing it after that long.

I've personally been playing a Lineage 2 private server called Infinite L2 for the past week or so. I feel it's really really well done from a design perspective. Although I feel kind of bad about the fact that these private servers typically profit from donations for operating a game that they do not own the IP or copyrights to, Infinite L2 is so much of an improvement over the original L2, that in comparison to the rest of the hundreds of free servers, it probably deserves a little bit of that profit.

Its as close to a truly PvP MMO as you can get, probably what Fury should have been. The server has hour long 'events' where the entire server does battle for a territory. These are either team deathmatch, capture the flag, king of the hill, battlefield (capture and hold buildings in a city), or a castle siege. You gain xp and money for killing people in those events, and for doing the objectives. Whoever wins the event gets to do a 5 minute zombie minigame where you're all locked in a dungeon and one player starts as a zombie. If the zombie hits you, you turn into a zombie, until eventually everyone is zombified and it ends. You gain significant xp and adena in there, so its a real reward for winning the event.

L2 had notoriously huge death penalties, this server does not. Instead, it rewards players with bonus cash for going on killing sprees, giving an incentive to stay alive. But if you die, no penalty, you just lose your kill spree, so you have to start over at 0. I think thats a great incentive strategy without making death feel like an absolute kick to the balls. The longer you don't die, the more money you get.

Theres a small amount of PvE as well, and you start off high enough level to compete, but theres still a great deal of upward momentum to gain. You're a few levels away from the cap, and your gear is pretty basic. So theres a good feeling of progression and achievement, but it remains fairly casual. Frankly, if I ever wanted to make a PvP MMO in the future, I'd be taking a whole shit ton of queues from that private server.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15443.0


If you want to play EQ but in 2009, play WoW. If you want something like UO, play EVE. If you just want to knock something about for a couple of weeks, play Planetside or CoH.

Don't listen to anyone who mentions anything else, they are just going off on a nerd riff about how something was new and shiny 5 months or years ago, this is fun for them and for most people watching, but is likely to lead to tears before bedtime if anyone takes it seriously.

I'm playing (probably too much) WoW, and enjoying it. The run to 80 is a lot of fun the first time, and if you like PVE there's plenty to do at the cap. Not a lot of f13ers on Andorhal though.

LoTRO seems to be the flavor of the month for a LOT of f13.

That Lineage server looks extremely interesting.  I always enjoyed L2, but the dick kicking grind inevitably makes me unsub.  I am tempted to sub again and try it out; maybe I will check out the free server and move over to a production server.

Keep us informed - I am willing to experiment with a new MMO or one I haven't tried in years!

CoX. Apparently the grind has gotten easier.

Fusion Fall, because it's actually fun. But I put this in eldaec's two week vacation category.

You mentioned you'd played EQ2, but when was the last time you checked in on it? That has vastly improved as well.

Otherwise, there's always the MMO that is the chorus of rabble waiting for the Next Big Thing(tm).

I would stay away from WAR.  Far, far away.  At least until they bring out an Origins-esque server with a beta build of the game so it's less grindy :grin:.

WoW doesn't disappoint if that's the kind of game you're looking for (PvE).  I've only just started AoC so can't offer any real advice there, other than it's beautiful and combat is fun.

I'd actually put WAR in the two weeks of fun category. Just do nothing but scenarios constantly, and it's quite fun. That's assuming there are enough people of your level on the server to start scenarios regularly.

How 'bout you wait until ChampO or Jumpgate comes out and get in on the ground floor of something new. 

Good idea, that worked out really well for everyone who tried it over the last four years.

Whether it works out well or not is besides the point.  The OP may WANT something new rather than something old and crusty, yet tried and true.  MMOs are investments yes?  there are varying degrees of risk involved.  WoW and LoTRO are the least risky imo.  But they lack the flare of the brand-spanking new.

Overall, the best thing to do is get in on a beta or trial and then decide.

Lets try L2 production together!  I have a few characters with some cash if I recall.

Want a well-crafted MMO with the standard, pve diku flair?  Go WoW, LotRO and then maybe EQ2.

Want pvp?  Eve

Want to log on for a few minutes and still do something fun and meaningful?  CoH is your game.  Fast and furious combat pace with a flair of personality.

Like crafting and being social?  Try A Tale in the Desert. 

(I agree with the sentements of almost everyone above and echo many of their opinions.)

Or, if you really want to play with a lot of other F13 posters, then Eve is really your only choice atm. Every other MMO guild formed by F13 types is pretty well moribund while F13 keeps rolling in Eve.

The LOTRO guild is doing just fine.

If you haven't played in two years, I'd suggest COX, EQ2, or WoW because they can be played casually.

Eve, even if you want to do pvp, is not a game I ever found amenable to casual play. If you want to put in the time though, there's a lot there. I found that I'd rather read about it than play it though. I think it's worth everyone's time to play the tutorial and mess around a little. It's a stunning game.

LOl my prhrase the popular list.

Pve - WoW. EQ2 if you don't want to play with all your friends. Resub to LOTR once you discover your new interest in the mmo market is really powered by nostalgia.

PvP - None. Go to an arcade.

Sandbox economy sim with some PvP support - EvE. It takes a real long time to get anywhere important but once you invested the time and have the social connections you will be blabbering like all the other nerds. The rest of the world finds the game boring quite frankly.

2 weeks of lols? - CoH/V don't know why people mention Planet Side your going to spend 80% of those two weeks dicking around.

For everything else, there shit. Try AoC if you want to see how much bang for buck you can get out of your gaming rig. I rather direct you to maple story if you really want an mmo for the sake of playing an mmo. Most f2p mmo's will more than scratch that itch for something repetitive to do, 2 years out of the market means your no longer part of the target demographic of the games I listed above. Your closer to cynical and jaded (you probably don't know it yet) with a touch of nostalgia, than nerdy and won't miss 15 dollars a month.

Do not bother with Lineage 2.  After a few hours playing its definitely not for you.

Get your free 14 day CoH/V trial here (http://www.cityofheroes.com/trial/). There are some restrictions on trial accounts, but overall it will give you an idea of the game.

If you know someone with the AoC disks then you can install it and hopefully get a buddy key off someone.

I'm all for free trials.

I've played this a bit. it's not horrid, production quality is high, stability is good and it's got some good ideas (the dual classing is cool). That said it's free, but is RMT and you will end up spending $ if you want to play seriously. Still it's easily worth the download. Things like housing and mounts come early - get  a house at lvl 10.

Personally I'm playing LoTRO but I've given up on PvP and am there for the purty (dx10 machine) and the lore.


What he said.

I'm with Nix, freeshards FTW!

Hope things been goin well for ya Chin, other than your MMO hunt.

I want to try Lineage 2  :why_so_serious:

Can anyone refer-a-friend me? Email is viewable in my profile.

Thanks Chedder.

I play Eve by roleplaying someone on a safe and civilised planet reading conflicting reports from a far off war. It has the extra advantage of being subscription free. As far as I understand things this is about the only way to play Eve casually.

Unless you have specific needs WoW is never a bad place to start. Sure, it's somewhat distressing how completely it dominates the industry but there are reasons why. It's also allowed them to generate some fairly impressive content.

Just to add to the echo chamber.


Play WoW. It'll run on anything, is the most accessible, most established and all around the best MMO to date, by a pretty fair margin.


LotRO is the clear runner up. It's not as smooth as WoW in terms of handling and combat, and it will push a computer pretty hard if you crank it up. (Also if your most secret desire is to smoke pipe weed in the shire all day, definitely your game)





If you're crazy, play EVE. Only crazy people play EVE, which is exactly how they like it, the EVE players (aka: crazy people).  :why_so_serious:

Something not brought up in this thread:

DAoC freeshards can be fun for a few days, if you are into DAoC (8v8 PvP). I'd suggest i50.

Freeshards? Really?

Jesus Christ people, why don't you just go ahead tell him to download TinyMUD.

If you want to play a text based MMO that isn't a mud but a stratgy game I suggest Utopia (http://utopia.swirve.com/) or Dominion (http://www.kamikazegames.com/dominion/).  :why_so_serious:

Invite sent.

Am I the only one who finds it amusing the Lineage 2 calls their scheme 'refer a friend'? I mean, if someone is your friend...


EDIT:.....sorry, too easy, and now I can't think of anything meaningful to add to stop this being a worthless reply. Maybe there is a message there about Lineage.

Look at it this way, if you like a friend and want him to stay outta drugs, would you offer him flour or cocaine?

The cocaine.........I don't really have a lot of friends though.......

I don't understand the question.  You would have him inject flour rather than cocaine?  How is that friendly?

Who would want to be injected with either?

I don't know.  I don't do drugs.   :oh_i_see:

I can find you a small army of people who slam coke to answer that question.

Anyhow, L2 is a cool game. It gets a disproportionate amount of negative attention here, and some of it is deserved, but a lot isn't.

The only real problem with retail is that it's been long overrun with powergaming botters who really cheapen the feeling of the great political PvP game that is really there. Private servers are notoriously more strict about botting, some even going as far as to ban players who log on two characters at the same time to 2-box, insisting that if you want to have that buffer in your group, you better damn well find a real human to play it. These servers have nothing to lose by banning, because they aren't taking subscription fees. The retail version of L2 decided long ago that its business model was to utilize cheaters as a revenue source.

Aion will go down the exact same path. Because I played L2 for so long, I have many friends who botted in it, who know people who made their livings farming that game. Right now there is word that one of the most renowned Greek farming groups from L2 is playing Korean Aion beta with over 140 botted characters being operated. There is already a very functional Aion bot that will seem all-too-familiar for people who have seen it's Lineage predecessor.

NCSoft has chosen this path. Private servers have proven that if they truly wanted to, botting could be all but eliminated, but it would require banning a gigantic number of customers. NCSoft doesn't think that is the best way to operate their business, so make what you will of that.

Wasn't worthless. I laughed sincerely.

As for not so worthless MMOs. Sorry, I can't think of anything perfect right now and I've tried a few myself in the past. The indie MMO scheme hasn't gotten its head out of its ass yet, but I'm still hoping. Can't stand any level grinding myself anymore. I realised WAR was just doing me a favor by dropping me off the server randomly after a few minutes logged in. If you can stand min/maxing however, then I'd suggest Runes of Magic, which is nothing other than a free version of WoW with heavy RMT and farmers. Lots and lots of farmers. I suspect the devs are farmers even, since you can buy stuff from the cash shop if you whore enough, or so I've been told by a RoM addicted guildmate.

If you like RoM's gameplay, but just can't find the strenght to whack large mushrooms over their anime-smiley faces, then the next logical step would be to try WoW instead. Do the trial until the level 20 cap with some random partymembers, if you can find a high level person then do a dungeon that's usually too hard for people your level and be a loot-slave, keeping the good equipment and throwing away the not so good, because you have no backpack space. Seriously, can you please return the option to place items on the ground? Please? No?! Go suck a lemon then!

Now, if this doesn't suit you, it's time to try something completely different and get someone to give you 21-day EVE trial. Ah, EVE, you've kicked me, beaten me, but still I've crawled back, and even though I know you'll do it again after I let my guard down, I'm too much of a sucker by now not to have a need to know what your next move might be. Why EVE? Well, there's the F13 crew keeping things afloat. We're pretty happy of what we have achieved and our wealth is lovingly spread among our possible recruits, which you can't enjoy in WoW for example, because trial characters can't accept donations. They can in EVE though! The first month is still fairly tricky and non-rewarding, as you have to do Learning skills to not gimp your progress, which sucks since it's just a timesink that might deter you from wanting any future progress at all. The newbie experience has been simplified and improved just recently, and I'm happy CCP has concerned themselves with this, but it would be nice to get feedback from actual new players.

Thankfully, EVE is a sandbox game. For new players it's like being thrown into a pool, but you've never swam before. Except there's seven types of flesh eating fish there. Oh, and it's not really water, it's some sort of flammable acid. But really, I would have quit playing, but we have some pretty darn great people in our group, people that have managed to carve out something for themselves and they let other people share the experience (with some minor prereqs). Goals are important in EVE, as you're pretty much the only one making them. There's a lot to do and a lot to see, but you have to understand that much of it is capitalised by bigger entities, because EVE is as much a sandbox as it is a social game. And a PvP game! I honestly don't know any other video game that has gotten my heart race.

I think it's important to read some EVE (http://www.alwaysblack.com/?cat=10) stories (http://www.alwaysblack.com/?cat=12) while you go through the boring bits of the game. No one's going to lie to you, there are people in internet spaceships that would rather make your life boring and frustrating, but having a perception of the whole universe by reading war stories while autopiloting or having Spelunky open on a second window while you chill and shoot control towers can help get through those.

The part of this you aren't getting is I met Chin on a UO Freeshard called Metropolis, and a few other f13ers are in on the joke. We had fun for a while there.

ORLY? (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=13545.msg467119#msg467119)

Do the words "soul-crushing grind" mean anything to you?

Actually, a lot of that has been mitigated through a sweep of changes.  I am actually enjoying myself and levelling at a decent pace.  According to reports in now takes 1 hour to hit 20 - not sure how they measure that, but evidently quests give a fuckton more XP.  Plus equipment is a lot more accessible.

Also, northern part of Talking Island has gold laying everywhere tonight!  Not sure if its from a bot or what, but it was a nice surprise!  Its EVERYWHERE.

So, in a nutshell - no longer a kick in the dick, more like a slap.

I think the butt sucking grind generally prevents me from playing L2. If there is political based pvp, or pvp at all in L2, it doesn't exist in any significant way.

Damn, your mmo ADD is worse than mine.  Did you quit LotRO already?

Here's the thing about the L2 grind that everyone forgets to mention:

Yes, it takes a long time to hit the top level, but you don't need to get there to get to the fun. Lower level characters can PvP amongst themselves and fight over territories and castles that have little or no value to the higher-up clans. The real truth is that L2 is *far* more casual than raiding in WoW.

Yes, it will take you a lot of hours to become a super-star. But you can do it in bite sized chunks. Log in, play 2 hours, log out. Rinse repeat. From what I've seen of my WoW-raiding friends, they wind up being *forced* to play for much longer durations, negatively impacting other facets of their life (not like losing jobs, but more like "Ah yeah, I gotta head home guys, raid tonight" instead of hanging out).

So yeah, L2 takes a long time to reach the end, but there's a lot for you to do on your way there, and you can do it at your own pace, rather than being forced to be online at certain times of the day to raid for several hours.

(Disclaimer, I've never played WoW past level 32. Maybe lots of people play it without raiding, I dont really know.)

No.  But I do need a break every so often, and for the last week LoTRO has been randomly rolling me back by 1 hour every single evening. 

Which sucks when most nights you have 1.5 hours of play.

WAR or AoC isn't grindy compared to WoW. Yet people left it in droves because of the grind. Not being as grindy as WoW's end game shouldn't be a game designers goal. Not being grindy should be in and of itself a goal for a developer, otherwise I don't care if you have flying unicorns shooting rainbows from their ass.

I disagree. Grind is attractive to many people. If a game requires far too much brain attention, you wont be able to play it for very long without getting mentally exhausted. A good grind system with proper social structure is ideal for players to hang out, mindlessly hack away, and socialize amongst themselves while they explore the world.

But that's just my opinion. See, to me, MMOs are a social space first, and a game second. If I want to play something that isn't grindy and loaded with achievement for repetitive tasks, I'll play... well... just about fucking anything else. The anti-grind crusade is retarded.

Raiding in WoW is a looooot more casual than it used to be. People who've been raiding since the 40 mans bitch about it all the time, it's so much more friendly to the normies than it was.  :oh_i_see:

Aren't those the people we mock and giggle at here?

I guess I'm just not a part of that inclusive "we". Enjoying grind isn't the same thing as catassing and pissing your life away. Grinding can be done in small little bits at a time, it only means that you are repeating a very similar task to advance your character, often a task that requires very little attention to be paid. I personally have always subscribed to the idea that one of the two following things should be included in every MMO if it wants to have a strong, self-sustaining community.

A) Mindless grind.
B) Downtime (includes travel downtime).

If you don't have one of those two situations for your game's character advancement, you leave the player with no chance to talk and socialize. They are constantly too busy managing their current encounter to have a conversation with the other players. Your community will be weak as a result, because strong bonds will be much tougher to form. I can see how a lot of people favor the downtime of running around over the downtime of watching your character kill monsters, but really thats just a different-strokes-for-different-folks thing. Game design wise, both means exist to the same end. Some people like watching violence without having to run around a lot. Some people like exploring and running from new area to new area. Both people socialize while they do it.

I mean, I know this is all very off topic to the original post, but I guess I get frustrated sometimes at how people will support games that they've never played, or only got 50% into the tutorial before quitting, like Eve -- and bash games that they played the beta of in 2004 and haven't touched since, like L2.

I generally find I rather have a game first than a social space. Otherwise I can't really call any mmo shit, because ALL mmo are social spaces more than games. For that matter if you find yourself unable to play a game with a group of friends than the game isn't hardly worth more than a week. If you find yourself incredibly bored without a group of friends with you, than that game has a shelf life of 2 days.

It kinda hard to rip into you since you seem to be the ideal mmo gamer. If MMo devs had a million of you running around, all mmo's would be block busting success stories, instead of either humbling paying the light bills or running into deficit spending and praying to the snake god of game design that their publishers keep paying the light bill.

Really? Were we playing the same game? I can gain 5 levels in WoW in the time it takes to gain a single level in WAR in tier 3. I can only imagine it got worse in tier 4. In fact, slow leveling was probably the BIGGEST complaint I heard in the WAR forum here.

Take WAR grind 1-40 + gear compared to WoW's 1-80 + gear. But no WAR doesn't feel less grindy than WoW only numerically does WAR is less grindy but that is assuming the given player is playing on a full server on peak hours and playing for 3-6 of those hours daily. On less than optimal play, not so full server, not playing during peak hours, only playing an 1 or 2 every so often during the week, than starts WAR is approaching L2 ball crunching grind.

We're talking past each other here.  "Grind" is what we call parts of a game you have to endure to get to "TEH FUN".  I have no patience for grind anymore.  I did that in EQ and DAoC.  If you enjoy it, mor epower to ya.  It's your free time.

damijin, I agree with the bit about high activity. Nobody can maintain a high activity rate for hours and hours on end. Disagree about the socalization part though, but then I've always been a hermit who turns off chat in these games. WoW is my big exception, where I fell prey to the Raid Beast and actually liked it.  :awesome_for_real: And even in that specific case, I only talk to my guild mates. Everyone else in the game can eat a bag of shit and die.  :heart:

Mind showing a MMO that requires far too much brain attention?

Lotsa reading!  Gonna start now!  Oh and gonna post a review someone gave of WoW and WAR.

This could be helpful for someone else so figured I'd post it.

I really do enjoy the look and feel of Warhammer, but that could just be due to the fun of being in a MMO again after such a long time. After my 10 day of Warhammer ends I will download WoW. I have WoW downloading right now on my home PC for the 10 day free trail run. I did a ton of PvP last night in WAR and it was a blast. I think I can see how the PvE can be weak there, but I'm not sure 100% how. I'll probably see it better once I see WoW's PvE.

That review said that WAR is totally optimized for PvP.
 :oh_i_see:

:uhrr:

Forcing people to do anything is fucking stupid. Maybe people can socialize because they like socializing and you can leave off with making the game fucking boring for those of us looking for more game than virtual chat room.

I know I love showing up at the spires to the Overrealm in EQ2 and hearing "The spires will be active in 5 minutes." That really makes me fucking social. When I go afk and make a sandwich. Dinosaur game mechanics.

Maybe we can talk about how forced grouping is awesome because nobody would group if they weren't forced to. Which leads me to believe people don't like grouping, if they need to be forced to do so. When I move, I like to stop by walmart and pick up five random people to help out.

Is this where someone brings up cantinas and wound healing?

We're heading there over in the kotor mmo thread.

Meridian 59 (http://meridian59.neardeathstudios.com/M59-About-01.shtml)

I think the thing is that most players, not all, with no push in any direction from the developers, will do one thing: achieve.

I mean, you could argue that the devs are pushing this, and "forcing" the players to do it, by making achievement so damn rewarding! Most players just want to get to the top in the most efficient way possible, taking every possible shortcut, and condensing the game down to the fastest methods of advancement possible.

I don't think that encouraging socialization through downtime is forcing players to socialize any more than giving stat increases for leveling up is forcing them to level. I *do* think that socialization, despite the numbers of people here who dislike doing it, is good for the success and longevity of your game. You want social players to play your game, they are going to be the ones who get bored of the game play and keep paying you for a long time just to have a world to chat with their new-found friends in. I think there's a huge market for non-social games too, but its not the fucking mmorpg market. It's literally everything else. Pyro is a great game for not socializing! You should play it :)

In short, anything you put into your game is going to "force" players to do something. As a game designer who's goal is to make a game that generates revenue, I think "forcing" people to interact with each other (as long as its properly obfuscated by something seemingly unrelated, like downtime and complimentary classes -- not cantina dancing) is a good thing for your long term success. Simple as that. Obfuscation of the things that you are forcing players to do is a whole different conversation, so, I'll just leave it there.

The other thing I think should be kept in mind is that I often speak from the perspective of an asshole trying to violently rape money from as many wallets as possible through exploitative game design that fucks with the human psyche, not from the perspective of myself as a gamer. This may cause obvious disagreements if I don't put it out there. As a gamer, well, I'm not retarded. I can socialize if I want to in a game that doesn't force me to do it. I just dont think very highly of the unwashed masses of 13 year olds who's lunch money I am hypothetically trying to suck away into my virtual paradise of friendship and no more lonely afternoons.

I don't know what that means.  Is that a Warhammer reference?  I thought I had seen a cantina that said it healed wounds (HP).  Come to think of it... that's weird if I read it correctly.


Oh man those were the days! LOL!

SWG reference. When taking damage you also gradually accumulated permanent wounds to mind, health and action (the three hitpoint pools that could be used to kill you). Wounds reduced the capacity of these pools. Health and action wounds could be healed by medics. Mind could only be healed by watching entertainers (fellow players) dance or play music, generally at a cantina.

Are the battlegrounds/scenario thing in WoW like in Warhammer?  There were so many of them going on last night that I had to actually stop signing myself up for them.  Everytime I clicked to join it was asking me if I wanted in literally 5 - 8 minutes later.  And there were lotsa players in there too.  It was fun as hell.  Hell... most of my money and leveling was from the PvP.

I'm still somewhat lowbie so not sure what to expect out of the PvE yet.  I'm playing that alliance wizard type class (which is a class I NEVER can play) and I'm LOVING the damn guy!

I enjoyed LoTRO, but the raiding stuff did sometimes get to be a bit much.  For example... raiding Carn Dum which was one of the easier ones.  Doing that place from the front to the back.  Even getting one or two of the keys to skip areas... it was quite a chore.  I do want some PvE because I enjoy that, but I am more there for the PvP.  

AND I would like it for the PvP not to be item based (*cough* EQ1 *cough*), but as close to skill as possible.

After Warhammer I will try WoW.  After WoW I will give Eve a try and after that I will try CoH/V/whatever.  And then I will try Lineage 2 (that's the one right?).

So this will be like a 3 week long continuing updated post about my episodes on finding a MMO that will now satisfy this ex-UO (~5 years),EQ1 (4-5 years),DAoC (~4 years) lover.

You MUST be joking.  That is dumb as hell.

Speaking of music.  Holy fucking shit do I miss LoTRO's music system.  That was the baddest ass ingame music system I have seen yet!  SOOOOO much damn fun to do!  Especially when you get good.  Its like guitar hero w/o the UI and your imagination on the PC heheheh :)!

Shouldn't you, y'know, get a livejournal for that sorta stuff?

I am finding L2 oddly seductive.  They really have done a wonderful job removing "the suck."

Hardest part for me currently is getting information on the fuckton of content.

aww come back to LOTRO chin....surprisingly enough I was in your guild on Silverlode (Bravado - Captain) but transferred out to Brandywine to the F13 guild sometime after your departure.  Middle Earth beckons....

No joke.  Cantinas were awesome.  Forced downtime is not, and while I appreciate the reasoning behind why it was done, I didn't agree with the result.  Damijin's concept of forcing anything on players is what I was poking at.  Give the players the tools and make those activities fun, but purposefully adding grind or downtime to force socialization?  Won't work, because everyone's tolerances are different.

Holy shit bro!  Good to see you again!  Yeah I left LoTRO when I left the wife (now ex-wife).  I took a break from online gaming and totally changed my life for the 100% better.  I am not reinvigorated and ready to play!

Hmmmm...  it is tempting I must say.  I have a new and much nicer laptop now that can smoothly play LoTRO too.  I do miss a good going guild where ppl talk shit and all do stuff like my old Acies Invictus on LoTRO Silverlode.

So I hear that WoW will be introducing in a very soon patch the ability to be teleported over to the battlegrounds... instead of having to go to the city.

So last night I logged onto Warhammer for a little bit more (about 1 hour). I did a few quests and joined the que for a PvP scenario. I then came across this "Public" quest. Not knowing what this was that popped up on my screen I stayed around as my curiousity was peaked. Ends up being a quest that everyone can jump into and depending on how much you "contribute" you can get in on the rolling for loot. The loot is pretty damn good to for my level (which is 5).

I stuck around and did it 3 times. It was a fun as hell quest too. It sure is nice being a wizzy because as long as everyone has the aggro I can AoE/DD/DoT things to hell and back.

I do have to say this is going to be really fun exploring all of these MMO's. The market has changed in terms of nifty features.

Oh, to be young again  :cry:

I played the hell out of LoTRO back in beta (I somehow got in really early), but I never actually subscribed.

Nothing except for the slowly rising amount of f13 players rejoining up has enticed me into going back.

I'd hardly call 31 young ;-), even though since changing my life I do feel younger now than what I ever have before!


Its tempting to me too.  The only thing that is holding me back is how peeved off I am from losing a very strong and lifetime account.

Uh, how do you loose a lifetime account?

It was reading you enjoying the level 5 experience in WAR reminding me that you can never go back.

My fucking bitch of an ex-wife took it from me because she went in and called customer service and supplied the original accounts billing info (which was her dad's credit card) and took it from me.  The lifetime account was my BDay present about 2 years ago.

I do have to say that the one thing I didn't like about LoTRO was the RvR/PvP/PvM (Player vs. Monster Player).  I prefer having a took I can level up and get gear for than the player monsters.  The player monster thing is a ton of fun though so they did do that aspect well even though its not a typical leveling type character.

Turn it counter-clockwise.

Ahhhhh I understand now.  Yeah I still remember that new feeling when I played UO and EQ1 and DAoC.  There's just nothing like it.  I'm really really enjoying it!  I look forward to the other games I will be trail running too.

I, too, really enjoyed the PQs during the beta. I wasn't sure how long they'd stay vibrant, since they're level-based and every mmogtard races to the level cap. Scenarios were great, but RvR was kind of a let-down, but I was a melee that was constantly rooted and nuked, it just got boring. Glad I got to play for a bit in beta, but nothing I'd bother with for money.

oooooooo............  :|

Well...Click me. (http://www.lotro.com/component/content/article/69-specialoffer/377-welcomeback)

The only thing that kept me coming back for more was the people in our Acies Invictus guild, but since my ex-wife and her family are still in it... I won't go back to it.  That is just begging for drama.

I did a few more PQ's last night. As my wizard I do tend to get close to the top in rank of the PQ's list, but I have to say that unless I actually work and I really do mean work at it (which is how it should be)... otherwise I will not get top ranking. Its nice to think you can just run in and do AoE and DD's, but you have to manage aggro as well. When those mobs get pissed you are in deep shit and you gotta back off (which means helping out less).

The loot is pretty good from those PQ's. I'm not sure about higher up ones, but so far I'm level 6 almost 7 and loving it. I tried out a few other classes such as the high elf melee'er (sword dancer I think?) and high elf archmage. Pretty cool classes I have to say. I haven't tried any of the opposing faction ones yet.

I did a few more scenarios last night. Out of 2 hours of play I felt like I did alot and had lotsa fun. There are tons of lower levels for the scenarios and not everyone is maxing themselves out for the scenario. Most are going in there at level 5,6,7 and the max I think is 11. Few 11's here and there, but overall not everyone is focusing on maxing out.

Tonight I may not have much time to play as I have to pack as we are moving out of our apartment. I do hope I get some time to play though because I'd love to try out the opposing factions classes.

Go back to it, then post the drama here?

Last night I tried out WoW for about 2 hours.  First impressions (now this is the regular WoW fully patched as of 3/31/09... none of the expansions) is that unless the graphics have changed and its not included in the downloads then the graphics aren't all that great.  They are not terrible, but no where near as good as WAR if you ask me.  I started and undead character.  I played with him up to about level 7.

 I really am not too crazy about the spell casting animations.  They look cheesey.  The world itself reminds me of EQ1.  Actually I liked EQ1's town layout better.  I'm going to try an Orc and Tauren tonight because maybe its just the fact that I do not like where the undead start off.  I liked all of WAR's order starting areas.  The elf one less than the others, but I did like all of them.  I haven't tried the chaos side yet.  I think I will make another 10 day trail and try that side next.

The quests feel like the same old hunt X amount of Y and come back.  Gather X amount of Y and come back.  I know that WAR has that too, but when I'm in WAR I feel like there is constantly a WAR going on around me.  There is constant turmoil and destruction.  Like I have to watch over my shoulder or something. I don't know if maybe its the atmosphere, but this is my first impressions so far.

The feeling I am getting from WoW is I think the same feeling I had from it the last time I tried it a few years ago.  Part of me really wants to like this game because there's so many ppl, but something just doesn't flow w/ this game.  It just feels to "simple" maybe is the word.  I honestly am not sure.  I'm going to continue trying and I'm going to try alliance as well before I decide on this game.

Sub 60 content on the base races has not changed in that time in any way that you'd notice.   Only thing you might notice is faster leveling post 20, but it sounds like you never got that far initially.

If you want a different flavor, you can try the blood elf or draenei starting areas.  Otherwise to get a real feel for how the game is changed you'll need to get to 58/68 or Outland/Northrend content (ideally Northrend).  Too bad you can't try a DK.

The Horde starting areas are really dull.  Graphically Undead have the best of the initial lot, but their quests don't interest me.  The Blood Elf and Draenei really are a big improvement as they had a few years of learning applied to them.  (Warriors are kind of annoying to take to Silverymoon though.  Your nearest trainer is in Brill.)

The graphics looked dated when WoW launched, but in terms of style and charm you picked just wrong when you went horde.

This isn't about personal preference or individual style, you just picked wrong. If you only played to level 7, and don't have a guild, bite the bullet and reroll alliance.


On mechanics, yeah, it's just EQ1 with less grind. Not that this is a problem if you liked EQ1 barring the grind.

The only starting areas that aren't absolute trash are Blood Elf and Draenei. The ones that may redeem themselves after you hit 10 and finally go to the capital are human, dwarf and tauren.

I had the same feelings when I tried out the WoW free trial. Older, but serviceable graphics and a quest grind I just couldn't get into. The emptiness of the low level areas didn't help much either. My undead warlock made it to 15 before I uninstalled. Just couldn't see myself paying for fetch, kill and collect quests as I had been doing the same thing in f2p games with better graphics like Runes of Magic and Perfect World.

Or Undercity - which at least is a portal away.

More annoying is Shaman - nearest trainer is in Orgrimmar.  Surprising as there's even a Druid trainer in Silvermoon.

There are lots of games I dont play because of the level grind.  I recently started EQ2 again and began to level an illusionist and the leveling curved has certainly improved since I tried it last.  I got to level 32 in quick time, but there being 80 levels to achieve Im now debating on quitting.  If I had the opportunity to start around level 40 I would definitely keep going.  Same goes for WOW, I wouldnt mind coming back and starting a new character(other then DK) but I cant be bothered to level from 1.  I dont know why games dont offer the ability to start a character from a mid level point or level 1, make it a choice especially after the games been out 4-5 years already. 

So Blood Elf and Draenei.  I will try those.  Thank you!  Another update...
____________________________________

So last night I spent 2 hours playing WoW.  I made a troll rogue.  Not a bad class.  The graphics still get on my nerves, but this gameplay was still a slight bit better.  I do really enjoy all of the nostalgic things they did like when you click the woodworker peons in the Valley of Trails and they say "Work work.  Me no that type of orc.  Leave me alone...". 

I so love that stuff because it reminds me of the old Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2 days.  I also really do like the voices they used for the orcs/trolls.  They also remind me of the old WC1 & WC2 days.  The jamaican sounding troll is awesome to listen to with the variety of different things he says like when he's out of range for his throwing dagger (there's only so many, but fun the first few times around).

I am forcing myself to look past the nostalgia things about it and only look at it as a MMO.  So far as a MMO I am getting kinda bored because the first few quests were easy and not too tough at all to find.  Now that I moved on to the 2nd village just outside the Valley of Trails its getting a little more annoying.  Now granted I don't have ThotBot or whatever those other things are, but I feel that it shouldn't be tough to find the stuff right out of the box.

I have to hunt down some tigers for hides and these other creatures that drop some stuff I need (no names were given) that it doesn't even give me any hints where either of them are (at least the other quests it gave me hints.. NW NE somewhere).  I literally ran all the way to another town with no sight of these tigers.  I'm going to try swimming to these little islands across from the village, but I have no idea what tigers would be doing on those little islands, but you never know.

Hunting down the attack plans (another quest) was fun to do as it was high for my level, but I was able to do it being sneaky and tactical.  That was fun.  I still don't have this feeling that there is a constant war going on though.  I'm just moeping about.

Maybe its unfair to judge it based on a few hours and levels of play, but I'm thinking that they should make MMO's as accessible in lower levels as in higher levels.  Kinda like how they love to push all the best scenes in movie previews.  Or at least throw you some tastes of what is to come (which I haven't seen yet either).  At least in WAR I can see what there is to come and what there will be.

You will never get this feeling.  Maybe when you finally get to the Wrath of the Lich King content on a PvP server, MAYBE.    The original concept of the game held the "war" up to be a big deal, but at this point, its a fleeting memory at best, and has been replaced with mini games like battlegrounds.

Except with the mechanic of group-only dungeons. I love me some exclusionary gameplay!

Brill is closer because the teleporter is close to the outside wall.  The Undercity trainer requires running to the elevator then winding your way through the alleys to reach the War Quarter.

Where is the Shaman in Ogrimmar?  (Warrior is at the back of the city. ><)  At least the blimp is between the portal and Brill.

I saw the Druid trainer there and I wondered why they couldn't add a warrior, and shaman now that you mention it.

Except with the mechanic of group-only dungeons. I love me some exclusionary gameplay!
[/quote]

Did you mean group-only in the sense of instanced content like CoH or group only as in takes a group to survive? Because I love me some instances and can deal with group only areas as long as my solo quest chains don't wind up there, which they do much too often.

Elite-tagged mobs that are balanced for groups to fight. You can zone in, good luck doing much after.

EQ2 has it, too. A few classes played well in EQ2 can take on Heroics (as they're called there), but it's pretty dicey for most regular folks.

It's Sky.  He wants MSOGs.

That is very much not true. We've been over this at least once.  :why_so_serious:

Oh yeah, played eq2 a bit and those ^^^ bastards would stomp my poor enchanter every once in a while.

I just resubbed to Lineage 2.  I can attest to the fact that the dick-kicking grind has been seriously reduced.  Shit tons of XP per kill and 99% less downtime.  Literally.  I leveled a character from level 37 to 40 at the sea of spores with NO downtime. I only had to go back to town to get more soulshot.

You *sure* about that? Here's the last line of the quest text from wowhead.

"Bring me 4 Durotar tiger furs, and I shall reward you. You can find them on the islands south of here."

There are some quests in wow which are unclear, but not many considering the massive number of quests the game contains. And if you do run into problems wowhead (www.wowhead.com) will give you all the information you desire.

Also note that level 1-80 in WoW is basically a tutorial, solo game. The challenge is in the instances (a bit) and the heroic instances and raids.

EQ had dungeons that were effectively group only.

So, like Cheddar, I've gone back to retail L2 with some friends.

Report: It's pretty damn awesome. The game has been totally changed.

Among the changes, significant rest XP that speeds up leveling to 2-3x faster than the game used to be.

Common items, which are like normal gear, but can't be enchanted. They're also like 1/10th the price, so getting geared up in decent gear is no longer a huge hassle that requires botting or ebaying.

Newbie buffs up to level 61. You get all the buffs you need to solo XP all the way up to level 61.

Baby pets. If you choose to level up a baby cougar, buffalo, or bird with your character from level 25 onward, you wont need a buffer even after level 61. A level 70 buffalo for instance, has focus 3, death whisper 3, vampiric rage 4, guidance 3, haste 2, bless the body 6, might 3, and shield 3. This is all the buffs you would need to do pretty much anything, so I advise grabbing one of those if you want to solo a melee character. Pick it up at level 25 cause you need to be the same level as the pet (roughly) to level it efficiently. So if you miss that opportunity window, you're fucked and cant level one. Oh, the buffalo also heals you. Kookooburra (bird) recharges mages and gives mage buffs. Cougar has a weaker heal, but buffs both melee and mage buffs. Useful for some classes.

Herbs. When hunting out in fields, monsters drop herb items that instantly increase hp or mp and give some buffs, these are really really useful and make downtime non-existent in fields. They aren't in dungeons because those are supposed to be for parties, so you should have a healer.

All of these features combined, with a few other things, have made the game far more tolerable to play. If you're looking for a populated server, it seems Phoenix is the most active North American at the moment.

One of my old clannies had a geared up 79 Overlord with 76 Spellhowler sub, so I'm playing that. I subbed tyrant and did 40 to 45 in one 4 or 5 hour session. I've gotten to 52 in about 5 days, not playing every day.

A friend playing every day did 1-52 and caught up to me in 4 days. You can do 1-20 in literally 45 minutes. Don't grind it, do the quests that the newbie guide gives you.

Whoa, did not know about this.  Was wondering what those pets were for!  Thanks for the tip.

I'm a dumbass and must have missed that part.  I'll reread that tonight.  I plan on getting a little bit of gaming in tonight.  I'm trying to give WoW a fair try.  I might end up trying L2 as well.

Did you mention which server your on, couldn't see it? Given the number of WoW servers it's probably not Caelestrasz / Horde... But if by chance it is shoot me a tell (characters name is Shinrai) sometime.

What server are you on Cheddar?

Phoenix is quite nice.

Phoenix.  I know I should not be having a good time, but for some reason I am!  Currently I am working on a Pole Arm Dwarf.  I really really really would like to level my Buffalo, but he keeps dying as I gather mobs into a group for MASSIVE SLAUGHTER.   :heartbreak:

Plus he levels slow as a bitch (I always seem to have vitality).  Any tips on levelling a pet?  Or should I just buy one at 55?

Lineage 2, old violent love of mine... if it weren't for Demon's Souls I'd be there already, again!

Should probably try to grab a high level one in Giran. Leveling them from 25 if you aren't also 25 is a bitch.

Actually, I tried to partner one with a scavanger solo bot at 25, and that one dies too :-\

The one that I use on my legit main 54 tyrant never dies. After 55 they get lots more health and he has a 2m piece of pet armor that lets him tank a good number of hits. Every takes a few shots to die in PvP!

Are you a BH or WS? Dwarf is ridiculous to play, but my friends and I may need a warsmith. If you're around 55 you could probably even group with us when we're around.

We have:

Level 78+ Prophet for buffs out of party.
Level 78+ Warcrier for buffs out of party.
Level 79 Abyss Walker, subbed 76 Hawkeye, subbed 55 Bladedancer (leveling now)
Level 79 Overlord, subbed 76 spellhowler, subbed 54 tyrant (leveling now, me)
Level 79 Spellhowler, subbed 77 bladedancer, subber 58 treasure hunter (leveling now)
Level 79 Hawkeye, subbed 76+ some DD, I forget, subbed 52 Sword Singer (leveling now)
Level 54 Hawkeye, no subs (leveling now)
Level 78 Spellhowler subbed 76 Hawkeye subbed 69 Warlock (waiting for us to catch up to him)
Level 79 Elven Elder, subbed 76+ Hawkeye, subbed 65+ tyrant (waiting for us to catch up)
Level 65+ Treasure hunter (waiting for us to catch up)

And several SEs for recharging and such of various levels.

We have a few boss jewels, most these chars got stripped by our clan leaders when we all quit over a year ago, so gear on the mains is spotty. Some people are totally broke. Some ebaying to get stuff back. We're doing whatever we can to scrounge up resources from our old friends and connections. All in all we have an extremely strong core though, and we'll form a small elite grief-focused clan with it, intending to disrupt the activities of some of the "Elite" top PvP clans.

I have a theory that anyone who plays Lineage 2 just likes Diku as a design paradigm. And as such, is part of the problem.

It's less theory and more law.

War Smith - level 32.  I have no idea what any of that stuff means, but am down with joining your clan. 

It means we have ridiculously bad ass shit. Not quite as bad ass as nova, but pretty bad ass!

Character name?

Oh also, you don't have to do the 40 quest anymore. Just pay 2 or 3m adena. We'll have you covered on that if you dont have it.

Arzhel is my main dude.  I have made some money via flipping - if you have someone who can cast recharge on me I can get enough cash to cover myself for a long time.  Mana is a bitch!

Just got back into EVE.  Great game.

I will be giving this Lineage 2 a try because I'm curious to see what its all about.  I will be 10 day trailing Eve too.

Which MMO to play??

I'm going to quote from Vegas Vacation:

Blackjack Dealer: Why don't you give me half the money you were going to spend, then we'll go out back, I'll kick you in the nuts and we'll call it a day!

L2 evidently does not begin until around level 60.  Fuck that.

I could stand it if the buggy controls were better, or if gameplay was better.  As it is I am just gonna try and make cash until my sub runs out.  I am contemplating EQ2. 

I think you mean level 80.

I played to 69, then just started using shared characters from my alliance that were botted or catassed to ridiculous levels. I'm not really a grinder personally, but Im apparently trustworthy enough to have access to all the important characters I would ever want to play.

After trying out a few different MMO's I really do feel that for the amount of time and such I will invest that Warhammer is the best.  It has the fast paced PvP (RvR as they call it) and I really enjoy the setting and classes.  This may change in a few months, but for now this is it.  Any of you guys out there still play?

I'm trying out Dark Crag for my chaos character.  Not sure about my Order one.

No.

Jesus Christ.

He'll be back to ask about MMO's again after he gets out of tier 1. 

WAR is a lot of fun in Tier 1.  After that... not so much.