What do you LOVE in mmorpgs ?

[Mem]

Prompted by Reohs' thread

What do you HATE in mmorpg's?

and the Why are you an addict ? piece earlier.

[Reoh]

I had been lost in the wilderness for hours. I had wandered into an area that was above my level, or just abilities; I was new to mmorpg's. This was my first one, Asheron's Call, and I had no idea what I was really doing. I toughed it out near a Lifestone that kept saving my life whenever I should have died, until I could battle my way over a few more hills and then from out of the wild I discovered a town.

There were these strange people standing around clapping hands. I chatted with them, clapped my hands at them, and eventually left them alone (later I would realise they were crafting bots). I made my way to the tavern, and bought a drink. Climbed the stairs and stepped out onto a landing right as Sunset was hitting. I stared off into the yonder and was amazed to see glorious hues of yellow and red. The deeper blues and purples settling higher came next, as spots of light popped into life.

Its moments like that, when I realise I'm in this massive world I can explore. Then later it was journeying with dear friends to face battles (pve/pvp) that we could never have survived alone. Its that feeling of achievement and fullfillment when you complete a goal or get that drop you've been after for a long time.

Something a singleplayer game doesn't do for me, because its doing all of those things in a broad vibrant world that has thousands of other players. It exists, even behind the scenes. Right now every mmorpg I've ever played (ok a few have gone offline...) is still going on. Evolving.

[Flintwick]

Originally Posted by Reoh

I had been lost in the wilderness for hours. I had wandered into an area that was above my level, or just abilities; I was new to mmorpg's. This was my first one, Asheron's Call, and I had no idea what I was really doing. I toughed it out near a Lifestone that kept saving my life whenever I should have died, until I could battle my way over a few more hills and then from out of the wild I discovered a town.

There were these strange people standing around clapping hands. I chatted with them, clapped my hands at them, and eventually left them alone (later I would realise they were crafting bots). I made my way to the tavern, and bought a drink. Climbed the stairs and stepped out onto a landing right as Sunset was hitting. I stared off into the yonder and was amazed to see glorious hues of yellow and red. The deeper blues and purples settling higher came next, as spots of light popped into life.

Its moments like that, when I realise I'm in this massive world I can explore. Then later it was journeying with dear friends to face battles (pve/pvp) that we could never have survived alone. Its that feeling of achievement and fullfillment when you complete a goal or get that drop you've been after for a long time.

Something a singleplayer game doesn't do for me, because its doing all of those things in a broad vibrant world that has thousands of other players. It exists, even behind the scenes. Right now every mmorpg I've ever played (ok a few have gone offline...) is still going on. Evolving.

This. Well said

Flint

[Zhul]

Not to get all mushy, but it's getting to play with great folks like all of you in TOG. The people make the game more fun. Without fun people to interact with MMOs tend to be just watered-down RPGs.

[Mesar]

It's the people for me.

MMORPG's would generally be terrible as a single player experience, but add a few hundred people you don't know, and a dozen that you do and suddenly the world becomes alive for me.

[MMOGAddict]

I have two main loves in all the mmogs that I've played (and I'm up to 24 of them now).

Firstly I love exploring, though unfortunately many 'modern' mmorpgs have taken this aspect away from their games. One of my earlier mmorpgs, Asheron Call (Heh sounds like Reoh started just after I did) had a great depth of exploration, from mysteries ruins that you found all over the place that had no obvious rhyme or reason for being there to the tidbits of lore that were ‘unearthed’ each monthly patch. Nothing beat some of the debates that would spring up over what exactly had happened in Asheron’s Call past each month and the speculation about joining the various dots together.

Asheron Call had the biggest strip tease of lore that I’ve seen in any mmog game to date.

And the world really did feel huge cause getting around wasn’t as easy as in today’s mmorpgs.

My second is turning love overcoming the challenges of a game that requires true teamwork between lots of players. Be it turning big frikken monsters into big frikken corpses or dominating the map in games like WW2 Online, Planetside or Pirates of the Burning Sea.

[Reoh]

Oh yes, hands down the monthly content update in Asheron's Call was the best I've seen in any game/genre. EVER! I wish games would do things like that today. And they churned them out like clockwork. I can think of only one month they missed it, and the following month was the launch of an expansion pack (after which they went back to monthly content updates for both regular and expansion areas).

If you're out there, maggiethejackcat I still <3 you and your website.

[MMOGAddict]

Another good thing about AC was they actually changed the world sometimes. In one instance during the Shadow Arc these large floating towers appeared and after 2 months destroyed 2 towns.

One of them a major hub.

The day after the patch that resulted in the destruction of Arwic and Tufa you could go to Arwic (the former player hub) and watch all these overloaded mules logging in in what used to be the top floor of the inn and fall to their deaths in what was now a flaming crater.

Arwic was renamed Charwic by the players and Tufa got called Toofar (mainly cause nobody really bothered with it anyway)

Ahhh the good old days.

[Reoh]

LOL I remember doing that! And player housing, whatever happened to that? The world also evolved in subtler ways, like new dungeons opened up and closed (sometimes seasonally available) and different monsters might move into dungeon for a story arc.

[merwood]

Overall what i love about mmorpg's is the lore if it is a lore driven mmorpg one of my fav's has been lotro and then swg . But also it's the friends that i have being with tog and outside of tog . Heck i have a friend that i met when i first played wow and before joining tog that we have stayed in contact over the years and we still get together to play unreal 3 at times .

Also what i like mostly about mmo's is the social aspect , My first true mmo was dark age of camelot in october of 2003 and while dark age of camelot it's end gmae was RvR , I considered daoc a sandbox game because you could do ml and arty raids , it had player houseing and great crafting and alot of class diversity . But overall i am just a huge king arthur fan and i love the lore regarding camelot and the round table and merlin .

So just the lore itself of dark age of camelot really inspired me to play my 1st mmo
I'm still praying for a dark age of camelot 2 although mythic said in a interview there nevere be one , One can always hope