UXO, WoW, or EQ2?

[SirBruce]

So, I'm torn trying to decide what my next big fantasy MMOG will be.  I've pretty much decided against Lineage 2, and I doubt MEO, D&DO, or Tabula Rasa will be out this year.  (Tabula Rasa might come out for Christmas...)

So I'm trying to decide between UXO, WoW, and EQ2, and I really can't make up my mind.  All three are going to have similar styles of gameplay.  But will they be able to compete on content?  Since WoW is new to this, I am skeptical they will be able to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to content.  I'm also not a big Warcraft fan to start with, so that's not a minus, but not a plus, either.

UXO looks very cool and I'm very dedicated to playing in beta to help improve the product, but one has to wonder what it will be like now that half the development team has been replaced.  I am most impressed with EQ2 because I love the graphics, the ultra-realistic style, but I don't want to feel like I'm missing something because I don't/didn't play EQ1.

Thoughts?

Bruce

[Fargull]

WOW has my vote.

UXO might make a strong contender, but everything I have read points to instances being a major focus and that does not sit well with my thoughts on the overall game design.

EQ2 maybe, but something is telling me this will follow the same road as AC2.  Dont know why, but just have a feeling.  Besides, I hate the graphics and really like WOW's, but teh shiney is just taste and not the filling.

[schild]

[WayAbvPar]

There have been small bits about each that I have found mildly interesting. However, the bad far outweighs the good in each case, so I will give the lot of them a miss unless I get some REALLY positive feedback from everyone who plays the game.

In addition, I will use the review of our collective Guinea pig (aka Haemish) to judge whether or not to try one- he and I seem to want the same things out of these games for the most part, so I trust his judgement.

 Added bonus- it is really amusing when he loses a small piece of his soul playing the bad ones.

[Morfiend]

I will be playing WoW, if it is good. I will give UOX a try probably, just because UO was the best. I doubt I will try EQ2, just due to the fact I absolutly hated EQ.

But I would say, try all three and play the one you like. WoW should have an open beta, and it sounds like you are in the UOX beta, so its not like you will have to spend that much cash to try them.

[Mr_PeaCH]

What about Guild Wars?  Or is that not on the radar for this calendar year?

I'm definately leaning toward the PvP-minded MMO games and I may even do a hitch with Lineage2 if my guild pulls together.  That being said, I know I'm only killing time till WoW.  Speaking of which, anybody know what flavor of PvP will appear in WoW?  Are we talking dedicated servers or instanced/zoned PvP or whatever?

I'll leave UOX to all the UO vets; I never played it 'back in the day' <sob>.  Sorta the same for EQ2; never played EQ and if I wanted to just quest and fight mobs I'd go back to FFXI.

[WayAbvPar]

I'll leave UOX to all the UO vets; I never played it 'back in the day' <sob>. Sorta the same for EQ2; never played EQ and if I wanted to just quest and fight mobs I'd go back to FFXI.

How did you miss BOTH UO and EQ? Were you too young to play them back in the day? I just find it hard to fathom that someone who digs the genre hasn't played either of them!

[esad]

After playing EQ for two years from launch I vowed never to play another EQ product. They owe me for those two years of pain and suffering. So, go with WoW or UOX. Can't say much about either since I haven't played them. Although some things in WoW remind me a little of EQ, which worries me.  I'm still hoping it will be worthwhile though.

[Kenrick]

I'll leave UOX to all the UO vets; I never played it 'back in the day' <sob>. Sorta the same for EQ2; never played EQ and if I wanted to just quest and fight mobs I'd go back to FFXI.

How did you miss BOTH UO and EQ? Were you too young to play them back in the day? I just find it hard to fathom that someone who digs the genre hasn't played either of them!

*shudders at the thought of the generation which had Asheron's Call 2 as their first mmorpg*

[Venkman]

How did you miss BOTH UO and EQ?

Thus enters to Age of the New Ranter, the folks who haven't been around since there were only two or three MMOGs to bitch about :)

Thoughts?

For "next big fantasy MMOG", I'm going with WoW. Subject to change, of course. And I'm certainly not going to join the rat house that is the pre-release hype forum. Screw that shit. I'd rather play nothing than follow yet another over-hyped over-promised fanboi-spewed piece of eventual mediocrity. And what's nice is that the current games change just enough to ensure I'm not without options anyway.

I don't really care for UO:X. It's not UO and it's not UO2, and I've long since lost any faith in the franchise.

EQ2 may be fun, but I'll worry about it when it comes out. Come to think of it, that's how I am with WoW as well. I just happen to think it's got a better chance of being "fun", given Blizzard's track record.

Lineage 2, bleh. It's L1 with new graphics and a character advancement model that makes at-launch-DAoC look like current EQ.

CoH? Not a fantasy MMOG. It's a fun game though, but on a level of PS-fun, as in, not sure I can justify paying for something I am only into for a single month.

[Mr_PeaCH]

I'll leave UOX to all the UO vets; I never played it 'back in the day' <sob>. Sorta the same for EQ2; never played EQ and if I wanted to just quest and fight mobs I'd go back to FFXI.

How did you miss BOTH UO and EQ? Were you too young to play them back in the day? I just find it hard to fathom that someone who digs the genre hasn't played either of them!

*shudders at the thought of the generation which had Asheron's Call 2 as their first mmorpg*

ACK!  No, truth is I'm an old fart but I didn't have a lifestyle that was conducive to lengthy online play at the time.  I was well aware of EQ and UO (moreso EQ) both the popular (mis)conceptions and some friends-of-friends sort of stuff.  Actually, I remember people "back-in-the-day" asking how come I didn't play; and my stock answer was that I could see how addicted I'd have become and so I was staying on the wagon so to speak.

I lost my true MMO virginity to DAoC actually... before that I slutted around with Diablo (I/II) and used to play DWANGO type DOOM etc. when I was a young FPS stud.

Just trying to clear up my good name... dirty up?  whatever

[Ballast]

I've been digging around here and there trying to find more info on Mourning, known in a past life as Realms of Torment. From what I've seen/read so far, it looks promising.

Guild Wars also looks to be worth keeping an eye on.

EQ2, UXO, WoW, Vanguard, et al are just more of the same.

[Jon Carver]

I figure we've got way too much time left to be making any decisions this early.  The blizzard folks have said that WoW will have at least a five month beta while they add content to be tested.  EQ2 hasn't even started beta so who knows how long that will be.  UOX?  I'm the odd one that never liked UO, so I've not been following that one.

But there's still no hurry to make any decisions on what to purchase.  No sense blowing your wad prematurely.

[Dren]

FFXI PvP Patch
Guild Wars
WoW
UOX

Most likely in that order.

[Sloth]

WoW and EQ2 don't seem to be coming out any time soon. I dont know about UXO.

CoH though will be out in 20 days for pre orders, 23 for everyone else. L2 will also be out soon. Those seem to be the two options for now.

CoH is pretty good so far, but its straight PVE game and the "arena" add on is still on the nebulous to do list. The best thing about CoH is the Super Friends Organization. Which are basically like guilds, but much more in context with the fiction. Its like the Justice League. You get missions like the Trouble Alert and gather who ever is on to go take care of the trouble.

The graphics look a bit dated, but certainly not bad. The animation is really good.

Cryptic went the right way with CoH, even though you basically got the same combat formula of other MMOGs ( healers, tanks, and nukers), most combat is more like Diablo than EQ style 5 on 1. Of course there are harder stuff, but the thug fodder you can take 5 at a time. Although if you get down to it, those 5 may as well be 1 in regards of experience, but at least it feels like you're a superhero.

I will defintely be playing CoH till WoW comes out.

[Alluvian]

Yeah, I am dropping Planetside for CoH and then biding my time.  I have lots of things to keep me busy.  More looking forward to HL2 than any mmog other than CoH right now.  CoH is in sight.  The rest are just the glimmer of false dawn.

[squirrel]

Another vote for WoW here - without resorting to faboi'ism i have to say im pretty impressed with what some friends in beta are saying. Now that's beta and a lot could change but for a fun PvE game it seems headed in the right direction.

EQ2 - no thanks. Hated EQ. But maybe that's just me.

UOX - dunno. Could be cool, not really that informed.

Oh and folks :

So, I'm torn trying to decide what my next big fantasy MMOG will be.

CoH may be great but it aint 'high fantasy' - ya know for teh elves...

[Kenrick]

At first I was looking into WoW.

Then it shiften to EQ2.

Now it's back to WoW.

I've never given a second thought about sUXO (and not just because the osi move to cali cost me a job) or any of the others.  I'm sure CoH is going to be cool but I'm more into the "high fantasy" like the last poster said.  I like the medieval swords/dragons/forests thing.  And boobies.

[HaemishM]

How about none of the above? No?

Oh well.

Gut feeling is WoW will have the most content, followed by EQ2. UXO is a disaster waiting to happen; with half the team gone before it's even in beta (or alpha AFAIK), I do not see this one coming out this year with enough content to fill a matchbook.

Added bonus- it is really amusing when he loses a small piece of his soul playing the bad ones.

I suffer for my art.

[RVWinkle]

So far we have:

- Everyone raving about the "New car smell" of WoW, everyone will be tired of the game by the time it launches

- Crappy screenshots of EQ2, in their defence they probably need to be seen in motion to appreciated

- EA, 'nuff said

I think you better appreciate what you have or find a new hobby. I myself have fallen back with AO which just got a new fun-as-hell patch this week.

[Venkman]

/agree

I'm on EQ round Seven. Fourth year running. Amazing what a new coat of paint and a few new windows can do for a place.

But with so many MMOGs now, it's easy to have actual engaging filler until that beta invite shows up. Already in queue for the end of the Winback to EQ program is PS, which I'll pick up again under the Station Pass, and then maybe DAoC, since it's been two years and by May they may have the RvR revamps in. And this assumes CoH sucks monkey balls and doesn't suck the life out of me :)

[SirBruce]

Well, thanks for the feedback, even if it was all over the map. :)  For those of you who stopped looking at WoW I'd be interested in hearing what caused you to turn away...

I don't understand the EQ2 hate because someone didn't like EQ.  EQ2 appears to be totally different in gameplay and style from EQ.

My concern with WoW is precisely that this is Blizzard's first MMOG.  While a company's second MMOG is no guarantee of quality (AC2), I'm more inclined to think EQ2 and/or UXO will have sufficient content and be responsibe enough to player problems based on learning from past games.  WoW I can see really coming up short.

I'm a bit surprised at almost no interest in UXO, but that appears to be largely the result of a lack of pre-release buzz.

Bruce

[schild]

What turns me away from WoW is simply the fucking godawful stupid moronic prepubescent userbase. I have no other way of describing it. Let's say I have an award for shitty forums. This award, for the sake of argument is called "The Vault Award." I'd give it to the Blizzard forums before I'd give it to the Vault.

Oh, and the graphics look like ass, in high res movies and pictures. I'll play the open beta for sure, but I expect that to be an exercise in pain. If I don't try to give myself a lobotomy (a la Pi) I'll be surprised.

As for EQ2. Looks different doesn't mean shit coming from SOE.


If I'd started this thread my 3 titles would have been: CoH, Tabula Rasa, and Guild Wars.

[SirBruce]

CoH and Tabula Rasa are both on my radard.  Problem with CoH is, it's not fantasy, and I wonder just how long I can do the superhero thing...

Tabula Rasa is also only partly fantasy, and won't be out for a while...

Bruce

[Soukyan]

Much as I love to hate SOE, EQ2 is looking mighty good. Gamespot had a recent interview video with the lead designer, or something like that, and while they showed video gameplay, he described what was happening and different features.

Things I was impressed by:
- Tutorial takes place on a pirate ship and the waves in the background and movement of the boat were pretty damn realistic. Very immersive.

- Emotes, social and animations tied to them are excellent.

- Spell effects are very impressive.

- Engine looks to be a tweaked SWG engine. The "radial" menus that I saw in the video were just one of the giveaways that this engine is very similar.

- Combat looks to be paced faster, so characters swing more often and have more available to do.

- Solo characters will be able to access most of the content (I'll believe this when I see it), but as always, won't be able to obtain the best stuff in-game unless they group up.

- The voiceovers should add an extra level of immersion to the game.


The bad:

- SOE

- While talking about the game, he discusses how they want to "pull the player in". On the surface it appears this means they are striving for more immersion, but I know beneath the facade, it simply means "Hi2U level grind and loot whoring!"

- Performance looks a bit rough when more than 6 people are on screen.

- Archetype system forces players to play as something else in order to eventually become a Paladin, Wizard, etc.



Overall, EQ2 looks to be shaping up to be a damn nice game. Hopefully the pacing will be a bit faster than EQ Live if nothing else.

[HRose]

Content could be a big, big problem for WoW, not because Blizzard doesn't know what to do and how, but because they are *painfully* slow. In mmorpgs, in the long distance, what matters is how fast you are able to build the game from its platform.

The starting ground in WoW is absolutely wonderful but I'm really worried about Blizzard not being able to let it grow fast enough.

UXO is a disaster waiting to happen

I so agree with this. EQ2 will suck greatly as well, you'll see.

[Glamdring]

WoW.

I have never played a Blizzard game I didn't like, and if it ends up sucking that will probably be all she wrote for me and the mmorpg genre.

[Kenrick]

WoW.

I have never played a Blizzard game I didn't like, and if it ends up sucking that will probably be all she wrote for me and the mmorpg genre.

Couldn't have said it better myself.  I will likely give WoW a try, but if it sucks, I'm banning myself from wasting any more money on a broken genre.

[Alluvian]

Engine looks to be a tweaked SWG engine. The "radial" menus that I saw in the video were just one of the giveaways that this engine is very similar.

Sort of.  They both started with the same engine and then further developed it for each game's needs.  One thing EQ2 won't do well is raiding.  So anyone who thinks it will be EQ all over again is wrong at least in the elder game.  The elder game in WoW will be more like classic EQ than EQ2.  The EQ2 engine won't be able to do that.  It is also a primary reason this engine cannot be an 'upgrade to EQ and released as an expansion', it would destroy the game.

[Soukyan]

Engine looks to be a tweaked SWG engine. The "radial" menus that I saw in the video were just one of the giveaways that this engine is very similar.

Sort of.  They both started with the same engine and then further developed it for each game's needs.  One thing EQ2 won't do well is raiding.  So anyone who thinks it will be EQ all over again is wrong at least in the elder game.  The elder game in WoW will be more like classic EQ than EQ2.  The EQ2 engine won't be able to do that.  It is also a primary reason this engine cannot be an 'upgrade to EQ and released as an expansion', it would destroy the game.

Yeah, he did also mention that the largest amount of people that would be needed (or allowed) for any encounter would be 4 groups. Assuming the old EQ amount of 6 people per group, you're looking at 24 people max on any given "raid". Definitely not the large scale raiding of the original. Which is okay by me, but some others may not like this at all.

[Riley]

Yeah, he did also mention that the largest amount of people that would be needed (or allowed) for any encounter would be 4 groups. Assuming the old EQ amount of 6 people per group, you're looking at 24 people max on any given "raid". Definitely not the large scale raiding of the original. Which is okay by me, but some others may not like this at all.

For me, thats a positive thing :)  You don't have to be part of some mamouth guild in order to do the end content, and it will not be possible to simply zerge the content by bringing more and more people, there will be a lot more strategy involved.

Of the 3, I am having the biggest doubts about UXO - I can't see how the dev team kept any sort of continuity with half of them being forced to move across the country to keep their jobs, and the other half is coming off a game that just got canceled.

I am interested in both WoW and EQ2... I actually hope that one of them gets delayed by about 3-6 months or so to give me some time to give both of them a fair shake :)  My gut feeling is that WoW will be a ton of fun for a few months and then just not be able to keep up with the end game - slow development by Blizzard has been mentioned and the game does not seem to have the depth that other MMORPGs have.  I have much faith that Blizzard will launch a fun and exciting game, I have little faith that they will be able to sustain it.

EQ2 I think will start a little slower - the hefty PC requirements and the anti-EQ sentiments will limit its initial success.  Long term though, the gameplay and depth of the game look more appealing to me.  The design of the game also seems to be making some significant differences between the original EQ which is a positive for me and I think that once the people that have sworn off any SOE game because of EQ understand that better, they might be willing to at least give it a try.

Also I might just consider sticking with SWG with the launch of the Space Expansion.  We'll see, I am currently playing the game, but I'm in the "treading water" stage - I still enjoy many aspects of the game, and just play it very casually, but it needs some major work.  The combat is the biggest area - been borked since release and they have been promising a much needed combat revamp for 6 months now and have not delivered.  If the SE is just XWing vs. Tie Fighter, that does nothing for me and I won't be sticking around for that.

[Alrindel]

I'll leave UOX to all the UO vets; I never played it 'back in the day' <sob>. Sorta the same for EQ2; never played EQ and if I wanted to just quest and fight mobs I'd go back to FFXI.

How did you miss BOTH UO and EQ? Were you too young to play them back in the day? I just find it hard to fathom that someone who digs the genre hasn't played either of them!

In my case, it's primarily because of the then-prohibitive cost of internet access in Europe.  MMOGS were not really an option for me until the cable company started selling broadband internet access, and the first one I played was DAOC.

Forced to choose between WOW, EQ2 and UOX, I think I would try WOW first.  I already know how Origin and SOE make MMORPGS: I would like to see how Blizzard does it.

[HaemishM]

WoW got first place from me because of Blizzard's main focus on questing for advancement and their general attitude that fun > all.

EQ2 seems to be heading for a trainwreck, because all I've ever heard out of the developers is how much more impressive the tech behind it will be over EQ1. It's all about the technology, the tech will make the game immersive, the voiceovers will make the game immersive. I haven't heard them talk very much about how it will remove the suck from the EQ mantra. I think it'll look great and be empty empty empty.

UXO is not an Ultima game, it's instanced Diablo with the Avatar and an ankh(strike one), it's from EA who has shown a complete lack of clue when developing a new MMOG (strike two), and removed half the damn design team before alpha could even begin (Strike three, you're out!).

[HRose]

EQ2 seems to be heading for a trainwreck, because all I've ever heard out of the developers is how much more impressive the tech behind it will be over EQ1. It's all about the technology

This is exactly my point. It will follow the same path of SWG.

[Faust]

Has anyone been concidering DragonRealms?

I know very little about the game, other than they keep sending me newsletter that I don't read.