MMORPG Suggestions

[Gary S]

Hi all. Long time lurker :)

Was wondering if I could solicit some opinions about the current selection of online games. I'm thinking of trying a new one out. I'm sort of new to the scene. I've played only one really: City of Heroes. I've been playing CoH for almost a year now and still love it, but a little bit of burn out has set in and I'm ready to try something new.

I just bought Guild Wars a couple of weeks ago to give it a try (figured there was nothing to lose since there was no monthly fee) and while I like the game a lot, I've found the community to be lacking somewhat. Most of the teams I end up on typically turn into disorganized, mad rushes, with senseless deaths, etc.

Anyway, I'm especially curious about some of the older games like Dark Age of Camelot or Anarchy Online. If anyone knows, are the communities still active there? A big part of my enjoyment comes from grouping with mature, like-minded people who strive towards the goals in the game but also enjoy hanging out and having some fun (not taking everything so seriously).

[DrDel]

...Most of the teams I end up on typically turn into disorganized, mad rushes, with senseless deaths, etc.

Dude, welcome to mmorpgs.

[DeepT]

WoW has a lot of content, and while it does not bring anything new to the table, it is the pinnical of an "EQ" style MMOG. It removes the problems, and pretty much does anything right. The only real flaw is for seasoned players who done the EQ thing to death and are looking for something new, it doesn't offer anything, yet.

If you move to other MMOGs from CoH, just be aware that combat is not nearly as fast paced and travel times are much much longer. They take place in worlds not cities.

[mouselock]

WoW has a lot of content, and while it does not bring anything new to the table, it is the pinnical of an "EQ" style MMOG. It removes the problems, and pretty much does anything right. The only real flaw is for seasoned players who done the EQ thing to death and are looking for something new, it doesn't offer anything, yet.

Well, and because of it's utter casual accessibility it tends not to have a whole lot of that whole "Let's form a group and tackle challenges together" motif, which seemed kind of important to the original poster.

If you can handle PvP, DAoC is probably a decent choice for the PvP stuff. The only really group-centric game I know of out there otherwise would be EQ1 or 2, but they have issues with accessibility and time investment. (Then again, CoH is a pretty solo friendly game, so if you found the availability/ability to form groups in it sufficient, you might be okay with most anything out there anyway.)

[Ryan A]

I'm on a hiatus from CoH after growing tired of it, and never seeing the friends I enjoyed teaming with any more. I decided to give WoW a shot.

It's a lot more fun to solo than CoH is, but soloing in an MMORPG just feels hollow to me. That said, the solo play of WoW is light years more satisfying and enjoyable than the snoozefest that was Morrowind.

I think the key to good teaming in WoW is having friends to play with or hooking up with a quality guild. There's a pretty small guild on Frostwolf composed mostly of folks from these boards that's a ton of fun to play with, and very helpful. I haven't had a lot of teaming with them yet, as I've had trouble settling on a "main" character to level up to a point I'd be useful to a team. In the two weeks I've been playing WoW, I've gotten a rogue to 24, a warrior to 20, and a mage to 13 (in addition to the level 5 orc hunter I fooled around with on Blackrock).

So -- from one CoH apostate to another, give WoW a try - the combat seems a bit slower at first in WoW -- you won't be able to survive more than 1 even-con mob at a time for quite a while, in contrast to the 5-10 mobs at a time you can handle right off the bat in CoH.

[Walter Yarbrough]

If you can handle PvP, DAoC is probably a decent choice for the PvP stuff. The only really group-centric game I know of out there otherwise would be EQ1 or 2, but they have issues with accessibility and time investment. (Then again, CoH is a pretty solo friendly game, so if you found the availability/ability to form groups in it sufficient, you might be okay with most anything out there anyway.)

DAOC is older of couse, which means that the basic client is free, as well: - http://www.darkageofcamelot.com/downloads/

-Walt

Edit: Client is free, monthly fees still apply :) Thanks, Mouse

[mouselock]

If you can handle PvP, DAoC is probably a decent choice for the PvP stuff. The only really group-centric game I know of out there otherwise would be EQ1 or 2, but they have issues with accessibility and time investment. (Then again, CoH is a pretty solo friendly game, so if you found the availability/ability to form groups in it sufficient, you might be okay with most anything out there anyway.)

DAOC is older of couse, which means that the basic client is free, as well: - http://www.darkageofcamelot.com/downloads/

-Walt

Darn, I thought for a moment you meant I could do the Anarchy Online thing if I didn't want to play the expansions and I was going to be all over that! Though I suppose the billboards for "Ye Olde Jolt: For When Ye Need a Good Kick of the Waking Spirits" would be a bit bizarre.

[Mike Hussey]

...Most of the teams I end up on typically turn into disorganized, mad rushes, with senseless deaths, etc.

Dude, welcome to mmorpgs.

Yeah and some (a lot?) of the players prefer it that way. A guildmate in WoW the oher night tried organising a raid on Crossroads using some pretty basic tactics. Half a doaen of the players started woth comments like 'Who the hell are you to tell me what to dp?' and 'It's just a game man, let people do their own thing' and graduated to spamming the chat log with 'yells' to make it difficult for anyone to read his messages.

Thankfully such games come with an ignore feeature

[Rywill]

I'd put in another vote for WoW. If grouping is important, just try to make sure you're in a good guild. The larger, the better. You're also welcome to join us on Frostwolf, of course, but the guild is kind of small and might not be what you're really looking for. There's a thread about our guild, Half Past Five, here (http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17642&start=0).

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

A guildmate in WoW the oher night tried organising a raid on Crossroads using some pretty basic tactics. Half a doaen of the players started woth comments like 'Who the hell are you to tell me what to dp?' and 'It's just a game man, let people do their own thing' and graduated to spamming the chat log with 'yells' to make it difficult for anyone to read his messages.

Thankfully such games come with an ignore feeature

On my server (Argent Dawn EU) I've never seen anyone do that. Generally, anyone willing to make the effort of actually coordinating PvP will be highly appreciated. Of course, Horde is pretty much outgunned, so we need all the help we can get.

A big part of my enjoyment comes from grouping with mature, like-minded people who strive towards the goals in the game but also enjoy hanging out and having some fun (not taking everything so seriously).

If full PvP is not important to you, and you don't want to join the Qt3 guild, I'd recommend a RP server. While the level of competence is not as high as on a PvP server, people are generally well behaved.

[soundnfury]

I would also recommend WoW, but with one caveat: the game changes radically (in my opinion, for the worse) at level 60. Suddenly you go from being able to solo most things to requiring a group of at least 5 (up to 40, if you want to do the big end game stuff) and from spending a several hours in each area before moving on to endlessly repeating the same half dozen instances. Of course, there are other threads explaining this problem ad nauseum.

Oh, and one other thing that burned me: if you play any kind of healer, you will only heal in the endgame raids. So your warrior-replacement paladin becomes a priest-replacement only.

Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the first 59 levels and am truly sorry they couldn't continue that enjoyment.

[Mike Hussey]

On my server (Argent Dawn EU) I've never seen anyone do that. Generally, anyone willing to make the effort of actually coordinating PvP will be highly appreciated. Of course, Horde is pretty much outgunned, so we need all the help we can get.



Yeah, I was venting a bit there over the behaviour of a small minority of players, there were probably more 'thanks for an organised raid for a change' messages from the majority of the group and as I said the game has mechanisms for dealing with such clowns

Don't let me put off anyone from trying out WoW, it's a fun game and a very enjoyable experience 99% of the time.

[Gary S]

The only really group-centric game I know of out there otherwise would be EQ1 or 2, but they have issues with accessibility and time investment.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions.

I've narrowed it down to WoW or EQ2. Just out of curiosity Mouselock, what did you mean by EQ2 having accessibility issues?

[Mark Crump]

EQ2 has a lot of access quests to get into some zones.

[That Strange Girl]

...but not too many you HAVE to do. Good characters can get away with few, or none if you don't mind waiting. Evils do need to do the Fallen Gate quest, but the vast majority of the zones with quested access, are either totally optional zones giving extra content that you can bypass without missing out on anything major, and/or you automatically get access to anyway when you reach a high enough level.

[Lee Johnson]

There's no denying that with something like nine expansions, EQ1 contains an enormous heap of content, but a recent foray into EQ1 (for curiosity's sake) left me wanting to claw my eyes out. Good God, its graphics are awful.

I've been spoiled by EQ2 and WoW which both, in my opinion, benefit not only from vastly superior visuals, but a friendlier, more forgiving game design in general. I understand that some hardcore EQ players dislike EQ2 for this very reason ("Too easy!"), but I'm not one of those. I save my hardcore insanity for FFXI. EQ2 is a game I like to play when I don't have the requisite three or four hours for a productive FFXI session. For me, EQ2 is "just hard enough", and still contains many challenges.

[Mark Crump]

The only time I log into EQ1 is to review the latest expansion. The graphics in the newer zones aren't bad, but the char models and original zones are a bad trip in the way-back machine.

[Lee Johnson]

Maybe that was my problem. I came out of the Gloomingdeep Mines, which were, "meh, caves, I guess it looks OK"... and was dropped into Felwithe, which made me scream "AIEEEEEEEE!" and clap my hands over my eyes.

I picked up EQ Platinum on a whim last fall, but never really did anything with it. Now I'm on the Station Access subscription plan, which means "all the EverQuest you can eat". (SWG, too, but that's a separate discussion.) So going back to see "Old Testament EverQuest" doesn't cost me any extra money. The Platinum box includes everything except the last two expansions, and I doubt I'll ever see more than a small fraction of what's there, unless I submerge myself in EQ full time--which I am unlikely to do.

There is a markedly different philosophy going on in EQ1, I think, in that most players appear to have multiple characters, and use their high-level resources to instantly bootstrap new characters into outrageous twinks. It made me, a total n00b, feel somewhat inadequate. :) I didn't have this problem in EQ2 or WoW, where, even starting from scratch, I felt a good sense of progress.

[Mark Crump]

EQ1 has that problem. Mostly because a lot of the players are 60+ and have nothing better to do than start another twink.

A brand new player is pretty much screwed in EQ1.

[That Strange Girl]

I wouldn't say screwed, but you won't be finding a lot of people to group with at low levels any more. Which is sad. :(

I don't play EQ1 much any more since EQ2 came out, but (despite the now relatively lousy graphics) I still feel that in terms of content the lower levels are much more fun than EQ2 or other newer games. EQ1 has just been around for so long that there are a huge number of low end zones, quests, and things to do, far more than newer games can offer. You can start a newbie 5 times over and level him up to 30 or so without ever having to fight in the same zones or redo the same quests. It's a shame that most people creating newbies in EQ1 now just twink and powerlevel up past those levels, because there are some great dungeons.

If you do start a new EQ1 character somewhere you don't have access to twinking, I suggest heading to Shadeweaver's Thicket from about level 5. Head to the northeast corner of the zone and kill lesser shades (and anything else that looks like a skeleton, those are placeholders). You can sell the shadeling silk and swirling shadows that they drop for a reasonable profit to tradeskillers and buy yourself some reasonable equipment that way.

Alternately, roll up a character on Firiona Vie and let me know, and I'll be happy to dig around my bank to see what spare stuff I have. :)

[SlyFrog]

Just don't expect to find many more people willing to group up at the lower levels in EQ2 either. In both WoW and EQ2, I discovered that the whole "multiplayer" portion of MMORPGs is a bit of a joke for new players. Everyone loves to group up for instances, and then runs around solo for the remaining 90% of the game. And yes, I was asking around, trying to get to know people, not behaving like an asshat, drawing adds, etc.

[Tyjenks]

I could have sworn we had a thread about this, but I cannot find it and it may have been pre-WoW, but anyway, I thought this would be the best place to ask.

I know there is a raging debate about the point of soloing in an MMORPG and whether developers should or should not make allowances for those interested in such nonsense, but if one believed it to be of interest and, furthermore, if one were looking for the most solo possibilities in an MMORPG is it the consensus that WoW would be the one that one would want to choose if that one were to only choose one MMORPG?

[SlyFrog]

As further elaboration on my post, it may well be possible to play in more group oriented ways in EQ2 if you are the type that can set out 2-3 hours every night to play with the same people on the same schedule over and over again. I do not have that luxury (fortunately or unfortunately, I'm not sure).

[Mark Crump]

I have no problems soloing in EQ2 with my 22nd level Paladin.

As always, mileage will differ.

[Xaroc]

I could have sworn we had a thread about this, but I cannot find it and it may have been pre-WoW, but anyway, I thought this would be the best place to ask.

I know there is a raging debate about the point of soloing in an MMORPG and whether developers should or should not make allowances for those interested in such nonsense, but if one believed it to be of interest and, furthermore, if one were looking for the most solo possibilities in an MMORPG is it the consensus that WoW would be the one that one would want to choose if that one were to only choose one MMORPG?

I have not played EQ2 however WoW is incredibly solo friendly. Soloed over 90% of the time when I played. Mostly you just have to group for elite quests and instance quests but you can skip those and still do fine. Of course once you hit 60 you have to group for end game instance runs for gear but I quit before bothering with them.

-- Xaroc

[Tyjenks]

I figure I can pick up WoW (or some other), play the hell out of it, get my money's worth, and burn out by Level 60. :)

I still dig GW, but my Mo/W is level 16 and it is starting to get a bit repetitive. I just do not have the time to do missions. I made it to Lion's Ark, but have two shields remaining with no little mission sword dealies. I hate to commit to grouping when my schedule is terribly erratic. If I solo a mission and my kid needs Goldfish crackers or its bathtime or time to read a story, I can simply kill any meanies in the immediate area and the walk away for any amount of time. That is one thing I do love about the GW instancing.

As an MMORPG, as has been stated, GW is a bit light. While fitting the bill perfectly for my current needs, it has left me wanting an experience a bit deeper.

[That Strange Girl]

Just don't expect to find many more people willing to group up at the lower levels in EQ2 either. In both WoW and EQ2, I discovered that the whole "multiplayer" portion of MMORPGs is a bit of a joke for new players. Everyone loves to group up for instances, and then runs around solo for the remaining 90% of the game. And yes, I was asking around, trying to get to know people, not behaving like an asshat, drawing adds, etc.

Just to toss in another $0.02, I think the difference here is that in EQ1, some classes just couldn't solo well. Rogues, fighters, lower level enchanters, various others -- some classes were just much worse at soloing than others. (Before anybody chimes in "well I could solo my rogue to level 55" yes, it's possible for those classes to solo something, but it takes a lot of skill and knowledge and good equipment that a new player wouldn't have. There's no way you can compare rogue soloing to magician soloing in EQ1.) The large disparity between the classes' soloing ability in EQ1 meant that at least to some extent grouping was necessary from very low levels for certain classes. The current lack of low level groups in EQ1 is just due to the maturity of the game and the vast majority of its players.

In EQ2 and WOW, on the other hand, the classes are much more balanced for soloing ability. I'm not so familiar with WOW but certainly in EQ2 it's very possible for all the classes to solo at least up to 20 if they want to, and below 10 there simply isn't any benefit at all to grouping 99% of the time. This is both good and bad; good because the casual player who doesn't have a regular group to rely on can still log in and progress in a meaningful way by doing some solo hunting, but bad because grouping is a very good way of creating social interactions in the game and it really isn't happening at low levels.

So two different gameplay situations, two different reasons for lack of groups.

As far as finding a group in EQ2 goes, I'd recommend joining some guild chat channels (or indeed joining a nice casual-friendly guild). With the mentoring system, anybody can group with you if they want to. You might also try some of the generic chat channels (right click on your chat window and go into chat options, you should see channels listed there for your city that you can select to join).

[Tyjenks]

Man, I just made the mistake of briefly browsing the WoW General forum. (Browsing developer's sites for major titles is something I avoid like the plague.) Yikes! I remember what kept me from trying UO for so long many years ago. Soooo much bitching and moaning. Who are all of these irritable people? Are MMORPG's virtual worlds somehow laced with crack cocaine?

[McBain]

I bet most of them just stick around because they like their guildmates.

I quit WoW about a month ago and haven't regretted it one bit, the endgame is fucking awful.

But I do miss a few of the screwballs in my guild.

[Brian Rubin]

Screw 'em all and try Jumpgate (http://themis-group.com/jg/). ;)

[SlyFrog]

As far as finding a group in EQ2 goes, I'd recommend joining some guild chat channels (or indeed joining a nice casual-friendly guild). With the mentoring system, anybody can group with you if they want to. You might also try some of the generic chat channels (right click on your chat window and go into chat options, you should see channels listed there for your city that you can select to join).

Hmmmm. I didn't try that specifically. Good advice, maybe I'll fire up the old credit card and give it another whirl. I definitely liked the gameplay better in EQ2 than WoW, although I did not get to level 20, where I hear it changes completely and gets ugly. Still, probably worth one more $15 charge to find out, since I own the thing already.

[Desslock]

In EQ2 and WOW, on the other hand, the classes are much more balanced for soloing ability. I'm not so familiar with WOW but certainly in EQ2 it's very possible for all the classes to solo at least up to 20 if they want to, and below 10 there simply isn't any benefit at all to grouping 99% of the time.

Good summary, although soloing in WoW is much, much easier than in EQ2 (which I would characterize as a bad solo MMO, even though it's better than the original for soloing). Some of the changes to EQ2 since launch have probably made it more solo-friendly, as well, but WoW is easily the most solo-friendly MMO.

[Mark Crump]

EQ2 has gotten much better in terms of soloing. I was playing last week and I got 3 great armor drops during a night's play. Most night when I play, I'll usually get at least one armor piece (not that I can always use it) and a skill book.

Really, at this point the two games have come close enough that it's personal preference. Me, I like the voice overs and the combat system in EQ2 more than WoW's and there's less 'leet dudes' running around. Also, EQ2 adds new content fast (but will concede the point that most of their early content additions were to narrow the gap with WoW) and their patches aren't 30-40mb bit-torrent downloads.

I frequently think WoW really doesn't have a clue how to run the game. There's a bug in this next patch that increases the cool-down period for Hunter attacks. Unless they've changed their minds, they aren't planning on fixing until the next patch--don't know if it'll be hot-fixed.

You can also pick up EQ2 for about $30.

[That Strange Girl]

Well if you end up playing on Antonia Bayle I can point you towards some nice casual friendly guilds. Not to mention push furniture on you. :D

[Hump]

I haven't played in nearly two months but last I saw, the EQ2 team were implementing lots of new solo areas. Matter of fact I was really impressed with the amount of overall content that was being put in on an almost weekly basis.

A lot of people bitch about SOE but I've always gotten great service/support and gameplay was always fun and interesting in both MMOG's I've played from them (Planetside and EQ2).

[Tyjenks]

All these mad propz for EQ2 and its solo-osity and I had almost convinced myself WoW was the way to go. Crap. Has anyone done one of those, only on the internet, Koontzianly-detailed comparisons of the WoW and EQ2 features?

[marxeil]

Just a stupid question from someone whos mmorpg experience narrows down to Guild Wars. Is there a significant difference between EQ2 or WOW from GW?

[mouselock]

Just a stupid question from someone whos mmorpg experience narrows down to Guild Wars. Is there a significant difference between EQ2 or WOW from GW?

I think EQ2 differs a reasonable bit. It's more about cohesiveness, and immersion. I found WoW to be more or less the same, which is odd considering how cohesive the WoW world is, but I foundit particularly unimmersive, primarily because it's so easy to do things in 15 minute increments in WoW that it kept me from really getting sucked in.

(Also, the "choose your class" quests in EQ2 really rock in terms of making me feel that the world is more solid. Though I'd imagine if you already know you really want to be a druid, for instance, it'd be annoying.)

[Tyjenks]

WoW has a much bigger manual.

[Dr Fear]

Just a stupid question from someone whos mmorpg experience narrows down to Guild Wars. Is there a significant difference between EQ2 or WOW from GW?
I think EQ2 and WoW differ significantly from GW. Both have a lot of secondary things (crafting, auctions) that you don't find in GW. The games have a completely different feel. In GW I always felt like I was going somewhere because there was always an objective because everything was an instance, and there is no one around but your party. In WoW and EQ2 there are always people running around, and there's a lot of chat in the general and trade channels.

I's say if you tried WoW or EQ2 after GW, you'd get a pretty different vibe.

[SlyFrog]

Well if you end up playing on Antonia Bayle I can point you towards some nice casual friendly guilds. Not to mention push furniture on you. :D

I'm playing on Guk, but I may have to take you up on it.

The guilds just are not that big in EQ2. I joined one that is the 3rd to 4th largest, and there are still at most about 15-20 on (this is during primetime weekend hours; smaller group otherwise).

I had a perfect example last night of what bugs me about these games that are supposedly multiplayer. Please note that I had the same issues in WoW, so this is not about EQ2.

I am out attempting to kill some Blightfang Broodtenders (big spiders) for my guild (you can get quests that help increase the status of your guild). As I walk into the chamber where they normally reside, I discover Queen Brightfang, a monster "hero level" named spider. This is an incredibly cool moment - I figure there will be tons of people who want to kill her, tell stories, live the legend, etc.

I mentioned it to my guild; little to no interest, although I did get a couple of people to wander over who needed to mentor me because they were about 20 levels higher (a benefit of EQ2 that you can do that and "level down" to group with someone). Some other random guy who was wandering through the area also joined, not because he wanted to help, but because he really wanted our help with finding another quest monster. He was grossly disinterested, and after asking 7 times "Where's the gnoll tacticians," basically wandered off after 2 minutes.

That being said, the group thought we really needed a healer (I disagree with how often people believe they "have to have" a specific component or role in a group, but that's a different story). So I went out and advertised to the general zone for a 5th party member.

Now bear in mind, I am advertising from what should have been a position of strength; we have 4 people already, the named mob is up, everyone is there, we are simply looking for one more position. I asked generally in the zone for 20 minutes. No response whatsoever. I checked the "Looking for Group" page and sent a tell to the only person on it, a cleric, who was at the perfect level for the monster.

The response? I want to join an "experience group." Translation for non- multiplayer game addicts? Rather than have a fun experience killing something unique, I want to go grind mobs for 2 hours to gain a level.

So we didn't end up killing the named, and I ended up losing about 1 hour of my time trying to put the group together for no apparent benefit. Bear in mind this was during the early Sunday night primetime hours, when there were a lot of people playing; I wasn't trying to put this group together at 3 in the morning on a Wednesday.

What a fucking blast these multiplayer games are.

[That Strange Girl]

[quote=That Strange Girl]
So we didn't end up killing the named, and I ended up losing about 1 hour of my time trying to put the group together for no apparent benefit. Bear in mind this was during the early Sunday night primetime hours, when there were a lot of people playing; I wasn't trying to put this group together at 3 in the morning on a Wednesday.

What a fucking blast these multiplayer games are.
Entirely agree with the frustration of your experience, but, is it the game really to blame? How could the game be better designed to have avoided this happening to you?

Seems to me that, unfortunately, in any multiplayer game the biggest barrier to enjoyment is the other players, unfortunately. Of course, they're also the biggest contribution to enjoyment as well. But I can't see how a multiplayer game could be designed to stop idiots from being the idiots they are. If you know a game that does, please let me know!!

[JMR]

I tried out Eve Online for about 2 months and as someone else has said, it's about as exciting as watching flies fuck. Oh god what a truly boring and dull MMOG. It's like you have to spend 6 months to level up your character before you can PvP. Training takes forever and there's an myriad of skills to choose from but you'll never be able to compete with those who have been playing a lot longer than you have.