Any good MMORPG besides WoW?

Started by Bloody Rose, November 09, 2011, 09:46:48 PM

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Kazyth

I'm going to weigh in here with my abject love of City of Heroes.  I've played many, many, many an MMO in my time and CoH/Cox has been the one I've always come back to.  It's free to play now, yes, but I've subscribed for years now and I think it quite worth the 15 a month.  I like the storylines, I like the community, the gameplay, the character customization (lots of costume slots, because I am a whore for that sort of thing).  I play on Virtue, the unofficial RP server for the game, and there's always something going on and good people to interact with.

I enjoyed Rift, but to me it felt like what WoW was becoming.  Yes, you can make your own class by combining three different classes, but most of the combinations didn't seem to stand out from each other all that much.  Maybe in time it'll be more, but...
A rose by any other name... still has thorns you can prick someone with. - Me.


HairyHeretic

CoH/V has the best character generator of any MMO I know.

I used to play it, still do a little on the free one, and will echo it as a good game to play.
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Shjade

I dunno, I think the CO character generator is better by virtue of having more options for your character's look beyond the outfit - CoX just makes you pick from a number of faces that may as well be masks, where CO lets you actually sculpt a face. Limited sculpting, of course, but better than "one of these 20 faces," particularly when 15 of those 20 faces are robots, lizards, aliens, scarred, or sneering, and the remaining "normal" five are just fugly.
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HairyHeretic

I haven't played CO, so can't comment on it.
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Kazyth

Eh, given that the vast majority of the toons I play and play with have masks, helmets, hats, hoods, facepaint, etc., the face thing never really bothered me all that much.
A rose by any other name... still has thorns you can prick someone with. - Me.


Samael

Quote from: Valth on December 26, 2011, 04:02:32 PM
I would have to agree with everyone who is recommending LOTRO. (: It's really a great game, especially for RP.

However, if you're willing to just stick on WoW and wait a while, I'd definitely recommend waiting for Guild Wars 2.

It's going to be great. :D

By the way! It's supposed to be coming out sometime around March, so you don't have too long to wait. (:

People playing their own music in town never got old to me.
That was always something that made me stop the grinding for a little while just to listen.
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Shjade

People playing their own music in town can be pretty interesting.

People playing modern pop music translated into midi files in town makes me want to cut them. Why the hell are these minstrels playing Coldplay songs in Bree? >:|
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Samael

Hahaha, someone playing the Imperial March -did- get my attention.
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shojin

Another here advocating Star Wars: The Old Republic. That being said, I have friends who have played both WoW and TOR, and they remark that there is a lot of crossover and similarity between the two games.

Nonetheless, it has been slowly eating my life away into non-existence. I have classes that start today! Ack.

TheGlyphstone

TOR is getting a big boost by their ability to have watched WoW's development and existence to see what worked and what didn't. Stuff like being able to complete quests in the field without returning to a questgiver, and 'Kill 20 Dire Rancors'-type quests being bonus incidentals instead of mainline quests are features WoW only got in Cataclysm but TOR has incorporated from the ground up.

shojin

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on January 02, 2012, 12:26:29 PM
TOR is getting a big boost by their ability to have watched WoW's development and existence to see what worked and what didn't. Stuff like being able to complete quests in the field without returning to a questgiver, and 'Kill 20 Dire Rancors'-type quests being bonus incidentals instead of mainline quests are features WoW only got in Cataclysm but TOR has incorporated from the ground up.

Well, why not learn to take the best things about other MMOs and include it in theirs? It gives us an even better experience with TOR.

TheGlyphstone

#61
Quote from: shojin on January 02, 2012, 12:28:58 PM
Well, why not learn to take the best things about other MMOs and include it in theirs? It gives us an even better experience with TOR.

I didn't say they shouldn't. It's an excellent idea, and one I'm enjoying immensely (also, space combat is the coolest minigame ever). Just pointing out that TOR has an advantage WoW didn't in that it can learn from the mistakes of its competitor instead of by trial-and-error (though I understand WoW did something similar with regards to Everquest by adding quests that give XP instead of almost pure grinding).

Ironically, TOR is also making some of the mistakes early WoW did - most notably, huge zones that players need to walk around in without easily accessible speed enhancers/mounts - at least with regards to the first planet or two. It's quite literally the exact same set of circumstances that precipitated the infamous 'Barrens Chat' phenomenon, and the exact same thing is occurring here as well.

shojin

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on January 02, 2012, 01:02:39 PM
I didn't say they shouldn't. It's an excellent idea, and one I'm enjoying immensely (also, space combat is the coolest minigame ever). Just pointing out that TOR has an advantage WoW didn't in that it can learn from the mistakes of its competitor instead of by trial-and-error (though I understand WoW did something similar with regards to Everquest by adding quests that give XP instead of almost pure grinding).
Ironically, TOR is also making some of the mistakes early WoW did - most notably, huge zones that players need to walk around in without easily accessible speed enhancers/mounts - at least with regards to the first planet or two. It's quite literally the exact same set of circumstances that precipitated the infamous 'Barrens Chat' phenomenon, and the exact same thing is occurring here as well.

They are taking to a good place with the prior knowledge. I'll agree that mounts come a little late. With 25 being the level that you get your first mount, halfway through the game to me doesn't sound like a fair deal. The sprint skill only does so much until the planets are bigger.

Even then, the mounts are expensive! 40,000 Credits for the license and MORE for a speeder? I'm glad I have the digital deluxe for the free STAP.

Shjade

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on January 02, 2012, 01:02:39 PM
Ironically, TOR is also making some of the mistakes early WoW did - most notably, huge zones that players need to walk around in without easily accessible speed enhancers/mounts - at least with regards to the first planet or two. It's quite literally the exact same set of circumstances that precipitated the infamous 'Barrens Chat' phenomenon, and the exact same thing is occurring here as well.
This was something Everquest had as well that Blizzard apparently chose to keep in the Barrens. In Everquest it was the Karanas, particularly West Karana which, in addition to being a HUGE zone with almost no landmarks in it to help you find your way around (keep in mind early EQ didn't have maps for zones, you just had to make sure your sense of direction was good enough to keep going the same way on a completely flat landscape for a good 15+ minutes at normal run speed), was also a fairly broad zone in terms of level scaling: the far west end was relatively safe, being pretty close to the same level as the monsters in the previous zone that direction, but pockets of much meaner baddies were scattered all around the zone, including a few areas in the mountainous region to the northeast that was up in the 40's or 50's, which was the level cap on vanilla release. It was all in all a very rough place to travel alone if you didn't know how to get around safely yet and/or lacked any speed boosts. The other Karanas (this area was split into four zones, one for each cardinal direction) were all somewhat smaller than West, but all much more dangerous as well.

I think bards were the only class that liked the Karanas, since they could run at the speed of light (not really, but a bard at top speed crossed West Karana in ~1 minute). Pretty sure everyone else wished they would die in a fire.
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HairyHeretic

PlanetSide 2 The9 Gameplay

They're aiming for up to 1000 players in a single continental combat.

I think I just had an evilgasm  ;D
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Manari

Well, not that I'm recommending that you go play it, since 99.9% of people who started with WoW have all hated this game...  But I still love and still play Final Fantasy XI.  I did the WoW thing for a long time, and it's a really fun game for a while, but it just gets old so fast.  I can't seem to quit FFXI no matter how hard I try.  I think it's really an emotional attachment thing more than anything else, as it was my first ever MMORPG and it really made a huge impression on me. 

But aside from all that, I've gone on to try tons of other MMORPGs like WoW, Rift, Aion, CoH, CO, and a ton of F2P ones I can't even remember, and the one thing that I love about FFXI that I've ever seen better in other MMORPGs is the really awesome community.  Granted, as a starting level player, you might not find the same experience now that the game is so far established.  But I've made more really good friends in FFXI than all those other MMORPGs combined, and that's no exaggeration. 

Driskoll

I didn't see anyone recommend it but DC Universe online is alright and better yet, it's free to play now. The character customization is pretty fun and seeing as you pick powers and weapons separately there are a lot of different combos you can set up for your hero/villain. Picking a superhero or supervillain right at the beginning of the game to take main quest missions from is pretty fun and if you know a lot about the DC Universe you'll recognize many of the npc's you'll be partnering up with/ fighting against. The main problem I have with the game is that the missions are pretty generic. You'll be getting a lot of "Go fetch this for me" and "Go pick up so many of these". This especially sucks in DC online because it is such a rich universe and the missions should have reflected that more. But now that it's free, beggars can't be choosers right? 

Samael

Re: Runes of Magic.
I did play it with my ex up to Raiding, and if you think about starting this game... don't.
The Raid instances are bugged like hell, many are so broken that you cannot continue within them unless you intentionally kill yourself, and then you need to be lucky. The whole thing had not been fixed for YEARS. It still isn't. Also, you -cannot- raid without regularly buying things from the money shops. Don't even think about it. Either you do that, or you grind a shitton to buy real money items from other players for gold.

The game, past level 50, is just terrible. I so regret the time I put into it.
Oh, did I mention yet that most classes are utterly useless past a certain level, too? You unfortunately only learn that after you get there.
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Kazyth

Quote from: Shjade on January 02, 2012, 01:49:26 PM
This was something Everquest had as well that Blizzard apparently chose to keep in the Barrens. In Everquest it was the Karanas, particularly West Karana which, in addition to being a HUGE zone with almost no landmarks in it to help you find your way around (keep in mind early EQ didn't have maps for zones, you just had to make sure your sense of direction was good enough to keep going the same way on a completely flat landscape for a good 15+ minutes at normal run speed), was also a fairly broad zone in terms of level scaling: the far west end was relatively safe, being pretty close to the same level as the monsters in the previous zone that direction, but pockets of much meaner baddies were scattered all around the zone, including a few areas in the mountainous region to the northeast that was up in the 40's or 50's, which was the level cap on vanilla release. It was all in all a very rough place to travel alone if you didn't know how to get around safely yet and/or lacked any speed boosts. The other Karanas (this area was split into four zones, one for each cardinal direction) were all somewhat smaller than West, but all much more dangerous as well.

I think bards were the only class that liked the Karanas, since they could run at the speed of light (not really, but a bard at top speed crossed West Karana in ~1 minute). Pretty sure everyone else wished they would die in a fire.


See, and that's just the kind of thing I loved about and miss about Everquest.  It made the world feel more... alive, in that you didn't just progress from one zone that only had things in your level to the next, following a totally linear path.  It added a lot to the excitment and feeling of danger to know that just because the zone you were in was mostly out of things for you to do, that didn't mean the next one would be just right up your alley.  I remember with great fondness cries of "D'Vinn To Zone" or "Sand Giant To Zone", the terrfied screams of someone who'd happened across a deadly baddy and was running for his/her life... and forcing many other people to do the same.  Add to that the fact that if you died, it could cost you xp, levels, and if you can't get back to your body fast enough (three days or something, but it was known to happen), you could lose everything on your character.  Meant you were more careful.  Nowadays there really doesn't feel like any risk to dying on a toon.  Costs a bit of money, lots of easy ways to get back up and running again, and boom.  It's more streamlined, yeah, but while I doubt many will agree with me now it really feels like something was lost when real consequence was taken away.

That being said, I'm trying hard to fight the lure of ToR.  I have my CoX account that keeps me going, and I've tooled around with LotR, Maplestory, Champions (was in the Beta), Dungeons and Dragons Online, Ragnarok Online... and those are just the free ones now.  I've pitched in for City of Heroes already, but I have to say the LotR community was nice as well.
A rose by any other name... still has thorns you can prick someone with. - Me.


Shjade

#69
Regarding old-school MMO design: yes and no - it's really an individual thing, obviously. I agree with you about the zones (I played one of the aforementioned bards, so I loved running EVERYWHERE) at least in terms of having them sort of sprawling and not entirely linear...but I can also appreciate having some structure help you along. It was way too easy to end up unsure of how to progress in EQ because you'd hit a cap on what you could reasonably do on your own, a consistent group wasn't easy for you to find and the game's structure didn't really help point you in the right direction to move forward. In some areas you might find yourself surrounded only by mobs way too low for you to gain anything from killing them or way too high for you to have a hope of killing them, with you stuck in the middle. I think something of a middle ground is best - zones that have at least a loosely defined path of progression but aren't exactly "safe" to quest through due to a need to watch for future threats on the prowl.

As for the hilarious fun of those train shouts, I think that has more to do with most modern MMO's leashing mobs than zone structure. You don't really get the fun of a "WRAITH TRAIN TO ZONE!" moment in WoW, for instance, not because it lacks threatening creatures in the open, but because those threatening creatures stop chasing people after about 40 yards. Sometimes I miss trains; other times I'm glad I don't have to run all the way across a zone just to make one angry wolf stop chasing me. It's a mixed blessing.

But death penalties? Especially death penalties that involve either destroying your gear permanently or removing experience you've earned? Hell no. I'm careful about dying regardless; I don't want massive penalties for death on top of, y'know, being dead, especially in an online game where a good 50% of my deaths are entirely beyond my control as they're caused by lag, sudden disconnects, needing to deal with RL activities and getting killed while AFK because there's no way to pause, etc. Corpse runs have never been, and will never be, a boost to fun, and I'm glad to not have to deal with them anymore.

I'd say the majority of MMORPG evolution over the last decade or so has been for the better. Do I miss some quirks of older games? Sure, sometimes...but not enough to want them back. x.x

...err... [/derail] >.>;;

Edit: I do really miss just hanging out in CB or BB with my 50+ bard, though. Was nice just chilling at the zone entrance, AE replenishing the low-level folks who were resting up after fighting orcs/gnolls, busting trains when they hit the zone border, generally being a cool guy who didn't afraid of anything. Instances are great for actually running an event with a group, but they don't really compare to an open "dungeon" zone where everyone is there together.
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Oniya

Quote from: Samael on January 07, 2012, 06:34:40 PM
Re: Runes of Magic.
I did play it with my ex up to Raiding, and if you think about starting this game... don't.
The Raid instances are bugged like hell, many are so broken that you cannot continue within them unless you intentionally kill yourself, and then you need to be lucky. The whole thing had not been fixed for YEARS. It still isn't. Also, you -cannot- raid without regularly buying things from the money shops. Don't even think about it. Either you do that, or you grind a shitton to buy real money items from other players for gold.

The game, past level 50, is just terrible. I so regret the time I put into it.
Oh, did I mention yet that most classes are utterly useless past a certain level, too? You unfortunately only learn that after you get there.

I tried it once.  Couldn't get the hang of jumping, and therefore never made it out of the tutorial.
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Samael

Quote from: Oniya on January 09, 2012, 01:10:12 AM
I tried it once.  Couldn't get the hang of jumping, and therefore never made it out of the tutorial.
You didn't miss anything.
It is as bland and formulaic as can be.
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Et comme des fleurs de glace, on grandit dans la nuit
La lumière nous efface, dans la noirceur on vit
Comme des fleurs de glace, on rêve et on reste unis
Des fleurs au cœur de l'insomnie

"Eisblume - Fleurs De Glace"

Jacqueline

I was very young when I played Everquest but I remember having a button that shouted:

"Train Choo Choo!!"

I had lots of fun with my dark elf lady. I hope that Everquest Next is simply the old Everquest with better graphics and not another theme park MMO like WoW or its clones.

TheGlyphstone

Frankly, I doubt that would sell very well. Everquest was great for its time, but its successors (yes, including WoW) were greater specifically because they saw the problems and flaws of their predecessors and improved on them. Deliberately regressing to an older and more primitive style of MMO for the sake of nostalgia won't fill executive pockets.

LunarSage

Quote from: Jacqueline on January 10, 2012, 05:36:11 AM
I was very young when I played Everquest but I remember having a button that shouted:

"Train Choo Choo!!"

I had lots of fun with my dark elf lady. I hope that Everquest Next is simply the old Everquest with better graphics and not another theme park MMO like WoW or its clones.

"Theme Park" MMO?  I'm not sure I get that.   ???

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