MMO's lacking, retired, or bound to return?

[Sytes]

What is your current favorite MMO? Why?
What is your all time favorite MMO? Why?

Simple questions often found with complex answers... especially for the "all time favorite"...

They tend to boil down to the best attributes of a games played... and one or two that actually contained the most of those attributes.

Many of us are looking for the best MMO to play... I am one of these people. In limbo at the moment... and hoping to gain some insight into what fits your idea of a great MMO and the games you currently play.

My MMO history...
Played a sharded Ultima Online for a short period of time...
Introduced to Beta for Dark Age of Camelot
Played for good amount of time in DAoC
Entered SWG at release (tried to get into Beta... not a winner)
Played SWG for a good amount of time
Played EVE for a good amount of time
WOW, WAR, DDO, LOTRO, I am sure there are others...

This is where it gets interesting...

Aside from the only surviving MMO fitting some of my favorites, EVE Online - I have juggled around different MMO's without finding that community sandbox feeling... Downsides to EVE, it is great though if starting fresh... well, it is like visiting a fantastic 10 day whooping party 15 minutes before it concludes...
Maybe this is the beetles music of the past meeting the bands of today... Maybe the style of game play has been cookie cuttered to a point of fulfilling the click and kill... and follow the carrot developing style... I don't know.

What do I want? A DAoC RvR world (Pre superhero/bot world)... An exploration vastness of EVE Online (Your a ship more than a person)... The devotion to individualized characters as SWG (Pre CU / NGE)

I would say - these three games have held GOLD status in activity for me...

I would like to find something along these lines...

What is out there? Or is this game style a thing of the past?

[Sytes]

So, I was evaluating "Earthrise"... In concept - looks FAN-FREEKIN-TASTIC!!!

Though the reviews on Direct2Drvie seem very disapointed... Another one of those, let the marketers determine when a game is ready to be released... not the developers...

WHEN WILL MMO COMPANIES LEARN... CRAPPY START = CRAPPY FINISH!!! Get it to a good/tolerable point.

They lost almost all my interest based on a few reviews... Sad as otherwise, this sure looks like a fantastic game.
PLEASE someone tell me this game is the goods... Us sandboxers of the past are looking for...

[Drac]

Originally Posted by Sytes

What is your current favorite MMO? Why?
What is your all time favorite MMO? Why?

1) Don't have one and am not currently playing one.

2) Haven't found a good one yet.

I like the concept of MMOs, but find them impossible to play "with" other people which I kinda though was the whole point of putting it all online. For a genre that's touted as "massively multiplayer" they sure seem to go out of their way to put up barriers to play with others. All the XP/Gear systems these games employ flows against the grain of actually being able to play with someone else - as soon as your XP/gear/XYZ don't match you may as well be paying to play a single player game.

I keep trying these so called "action" orientated MMOs but they all end up being the exact same stuff with a different coat of paint.

[brohawk]

I played in the Earthrise beta. It wasn't too bad but a bit laggy. It does have what I would call a decent play style. It is FFA PVP though, so you do have to be alert. You can even attack players on your own side. I didn't get far into it though and I won't be picking it up mainly because I already play too many MMOs (STO, CO, and PotBS) and the ones I am waiting for are TOR and GW2.

[Markan]

I've been a LOTRO player for nearly 4 years and still really enjoy it. I don't think its anything revolutionary but the setting clinches it for me. I need a world that I feel has history and some depth - so I care what happens

They are also in the process of ripping out the one bit of real gear gating that they had at end-game - which is a huge relief to the more casual players like you find in as the majority in TOG guilds.

Level is still an issue, but since it went F2P it is much easier to find PUGs than it was at the lower levels.

Light on sandbox and light on PvP though which is probably why it didn't hold you Sytes

[solarbear88]

I am currently in Open Beta for Rift and am sold on many aspects of the game. I ahve already bought a 6 month sub... I am that sold on it.

Particularly, and as some one stated earlier, there are many hurdles to doing things with others in these so called multi-player games. Rift removes the largest obstacle with its class system and introduces a lot of casual multi-player content.

IMHO this formula is old and tired and could use a refreshing. It needs some fresh ideas, not simply recreating WOW with different pictures, to revitalise itself. It will be fun to see how well the GW2 formula goes over as it has a lot of different systems to what people are used to.

But I think there are lots of things that could be done with the genre to move it forward. One thing that was there from the start of my online gaming, Neverwinter Nights, was the capability for player generated content, this might be the area I would like game makers go back to and explore in the future. That game was kind of built around small communities of players and it was a much more rich online experience than what we get in today's MMO.

[Sytes]

Edit: Sorry Solarbear - posted right over you - not seeing your post. Great info... Was looking into Rift. Is it more linear or does it have sandbox elements? or both? Great to hear a beta players speak as well as a 6 month purchase... Mind elaborating on what makes it such a sell?

Ya... interesting.

As with Markan and I am sure others... The game has to have some depth. I enjoy PvP not for the function of attacking another player - more for the players to unite for a common purpose. Markan, While I found my time occupied in LOTRO, it seemed a grind and once it reached to long in time to reach the next level that grind became unmanagable for me. The players were very nice... The stories good... Though just misses that player unity in protecting the interest within Player combat / strategy...

I am more a... RvR (DAoC terminology) than a PvP... PvP must have some depth... actual involvement with the events of the game... SWG had that to some degree... What was great about SWG was the character generation, training, and crafting... it was open ended... Then, I have no clue what happened... SOE had a defector or something... haha!

I would be very interested in your thoughts respecting Earthwise, Brohawk and others whom play... (or played).
Does this fall into the bracket of old school Star Wars Galaxies? An actual consequence for death? If done right - I would think this good... If it teters - It can really sour a PvP setting, IMO.
How about the purpose... of PvP... ?

Great input all! Really enjoy getting a vibe for current MMO games and considerations of them.

[Filadan]

1. Perpetuum - I thought I'd give it a try as it didn't cost much to sub and I really liked Battletech back in the day (even the tabletop version). Similar progression as EVE but I think that's really where the similarities end for me. It really takes too long to get around and there's not much to combat. I sub'ed for 3 months so I'll stick with it a while, it might get better as you progress.

2. Everquest - The game was nothing spectacular and a huge grind but I really liked it because there was a lot of incentive to find a group so you could usually find one pretty quick. This made it a lot easier to meet people with common interests and I found a good guild that enjoyed roleplaying.

It's disappointing that so many games now put huge focus on solo play, it really defeats the point of an MMO. I remember playing WoW for a few months straight before finally catching up in level to others. Then the only time people would group up is to go off to a dungeon.

There doesn't seem to be much of an element of danger anymore or exploration. The world's become a place where towns are tiny and full of people who either say nothing or have exclamation points over their heads. You journey out of the town and you're faced with enemies that have to triple team you to take you down to half health.

Even WoW with the storyline from the strategy games has a pretty shallow storyline.

So really I'm looking for a game with some depth, a great community and a reason to always have a friend watchin' your back.

[solarbear88]

Originally Posted by Sytes

Edit: Sorry Solarbear - posted right over you - not seeing your post. Great info... Was looking into Rift. Is it more linear or does it have sandbox elements? or both? Great to hear a beta players speak as well as a 6 month purchase... Mind elaborating on what makes it such a sell?

Rift is not a sandbox. It is very very linear.


What I like about Rift:
It is stable... and has all the common MMO elements in place and working well.
It has a diverse class system. You choose a Calling - Rogue, Mage, Warrior, Cleric. But you then choose 3 souls out of the 8 available and create a role for yourself by putting points in them (each level gets 1 point, plus a bonus point every 3 levels).
Classes have a lot of skills and options.
The world is beautiful.
The interface is awesome.
There is a lot of dungeon content in place already.
Dungeon content is much better than most.

To Quote Hartsman the developer, "Its not that people don't want to play with one another. Its just often made too inconvenient." I don't know how many times I have spammed the TOG channel LFTank or LFHealer. In this game people can swap Roles and form parties easier. Also you can swap roles and take turns, making doing a dungeon multiple times more fun.

You can have up to 4 different class combos saved up to fill different roles. So your gameplay is ever changing. Ever been nerfed? Yeah I loved Warhammer but woke up to find my Witch Elf was now doing less damage than a SB tank. Well in Rift you can create another role by grabbing different souls in your calling, that were not nerfed, and continue on. Your next 6 months of gaming are not ruined.

Rifts and invasions make the world much more interesting. They also offer easy opportunities to form groups quite easily. You can join a public group or quickly invite a few people to join you. You might then spend the whole evening rifting with them.

They have the end game already in place. Over half their team is now working on end game.

[brohawk]

to be honest Sytes, I didn't get that far into Earthrise, however I did die a few times and there was no DP to speak of. I don't know if that will change in live or not. What it did remind me of for some reason was a tactical shooter. I just liked the feel of the game, but it was laggy and the beginning tutorial areas were mayhem.