I’ve been trying to find a really good MMOG ever since Motor City Online announced they were shutting down in August. I’ve looked around and from what I can gather Everquest is still the champ on the MMOG scene. I tried Shadowbane, its a total and abysmal mess. I played Earth and Beyond (tragically flawed), and Asheron’s call when it came out, neither did anything for me.
So what is your opinion on the most entertaining MMOG out there?
This might need to be moved to IMHO…
But I’ve played Asheron’s Call for 3 years now and just love it. The developers are still very involved and change and update content every month.
But I’m hearing very VERY good things about Half Life 2.
General Questions is for questions with factual answers; IMHO is for opinions and polls.
Off to IMHO.
DrMatrix - GQ Moderator
I’ve played almost all of them, and the one I’m playing now is Everquest. But that’s more due to the fact that I hooked up with a great group of friends then it being a great game.
Ultima Online is the granddaddy of all these things, and still offers compelling play. It’s got the deepest skill system and character customization of all the games. It’s more of a social game than most of the ones I’ve played. They’ve recently released the (I believe) 4th expansion, Age of Shadows. The nice thing about it is that whenever they release an expansion, the whole game is included in the box so new players only have to buy one product to have everything.
Asheron’s Call was the first MMORPG I played, and I still have fond memories of it. The graphics are a bit dated now, so if you’re looking for something pretty you should avoid it. It has an enormous landmass and is fun just wandering around and exploring. The game encourages soloing, so it’s difficult to meet folks. I haven’t played in a few years, so that might have changed.
Asheron’s Call 2 I played from launch day for three months. I may go back and revisit it at some point, but at launch it was content-light and got boring pretty quick. I also was playing on one of the Kingdom Wars servers, and while Turbine admitted that there were problems with the PvP system, they were going to focus on other issues for a while. If you’re not playing on one of the PvP servers, your experience might be different.
Anarchy Online was a lot of fun. I’d probably still be playing it if I hadn’t hooked up with my EQ friends. At the levels I was at (mid-40s) it also encourages soloing, but that may change at higher levels. And how can you not like a game that has creatures called “Leets” in the newbie zones that say things like “I’m gonna get my main” while you’re killing them?
Earth and Beyond got pretty boring for me. The idea of a Massively Multiplayer Elite was interesting, but in practice it ended up being a lot of setting a destination and reading a book for a few minutes.
Dark Age of Camelot I tried, but it didn’t really grab me. Mostly because I joined late and there weren’t many folks to play with in the newbie areas, I think. I didn’t get up to Realm War levels though.
Shadowbane was a game I was really looking forward to. It looked like it was going to offer a setting where PvP conflict actually mattered, rather than the gankfest that usually shows up in MMORPGs that offer PvP. However, the newbie experience was so boring that I didn’t stay long enough to make it to the PvP levels.
Eve I played for a bit in beta. It looked like it was going to be a better game than Earth and Beyond, but it was pretty unfinished when I played it so I’m not sure how it turned out.
And finally, Everquest continues to be the big powerhouse in the field. At this point I’m mainly still playing it because of my friends. The gameplay can be pretty repetitive and boring, unless you find a group of folks to play with that like to take risks. Most people try to skip the lower-level content by doing the safe xp-farming camps so they can get to high levels quickly. The big problem with the game for someone joining now is the startup cost. To get everything you need to buy the Everquest Trilogy (which includes the original game, Ruins of Kunark, and Scars of Velious), Shadows of Luclin, Planes of Power, and Legacy of Ykesha. You could probably get by with just the Trilogy, but most people do the levelling grind on Luclin now, and you’ll be jealous of the people with Planes of Power because they can get around Norrath much faster than you. This fall they’re releasing a package with all the expansions in it, which will help. If you can find a store that still has the Everquest Gold package, that has all the expansions except Ykesha in it, along with a comic, a lead figure, a pretty manual, and cloth maps.
So that’s Eegba’s quick nutshell reviews of the MMORPGs I’ve played. YMMV
Oops, thanks for the move, I should have put it there in the first place.
I’m thinking about Asheron’s Call 2, you’re the second person today to say it is a decent game. HL2 on the other hand is not going to be a MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game).
There’s also Dransik, a sprite-based fantasy rpg. It’s basically what Ultima Online should’ve been.
Oh, and I’m the main creature and character artist on it. Not that I’m biased or anything. 
Please forget about AC2, the game is total crap. Its only a few months old and its the first ever online game to shut down one of its servers for lack of people. Basically the only good thing you can say about it is that it looks pretty, sadly all their effort went into the engine without any thought of putting an actual game behind it.
Shadowbane is a good game, if you like pvp that is, but it has ALOT of technical problems at the moment. Actually the same thing can be said about any next gen online games, they always take 6 months to a year to get all their problems sorted out. Anarchy online is approaching this point now after launching over a year ago. If you want to play a bug free game with minimal tehcnical difficulties and most of the balance kinks worked out stick with the tried and true games: EQ, UO, AC1, or DaoC. Everything else will need at least a year or so to get to their full potential.
Wow Eegba, outstanding review! I’m still leaning towards Everquest if for no other reason than the most people seem to be there. I love good graphics and all, but even though EQ’s may be a little dated I think I can live with it. Thanks again, keep the reviews coming. I’m also interested in technical problems and how the staff deals with them. Too many times staff will ignore outrageous issues.
I’m not an EQ player, but I’ve had the dubious pleasure of listening to a bunch of players rant about it while LARPing or tabletopping. The main things they complain about are repetitious play, strong discouragement of soloing (to the point of it being impossible for many/most characters at higher levels), and frequent (unneeded) tinkering with the system (especially nerfing).
Like I said, I don’t play, so I don’t know how severe these problems are. I just figured someone should mention them.
You might want to take a look around Stratics, Casters Realm, and RPG Vault. They each have sections for most of the games out there. I found digging around in the game guides and game info, as well as lurking on the boards, gave me a feel for how the game plays.
And tomorrow Star Wars Galaxies launches. I’ve heard very good things and very bad things about it, but I didn’t get into the beta so I don’t have first hand experience.
I’m really looking forward to Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft, but they won’t be out for a while.
Regarding Balance’s post, except for a few classes in EQ, soloing is pretty much impossible. But if you play a MM game to play with other people that’s not much of a problem. I woudn’t say the nerfs are frequent, but they certainly aren’t afraid of nerfing in the name of game balance. I don’t mind nerfs if they help the game as a whole. And most people who complain about the EQ nerfs (as with most people who complain about anything) tend to ignore all the good things that have been added to the game in the past year.
Well, Worlds of Warcract is comming out and from what I have seen, I think that game is going to rock the house. Good graphics and Blizzard North’s attention to detail. I am impressed with the movies I have seen and whatnot. Hopefully it’ll live up to the hype!
I’ve played Everquest, Asheron’s Call, and Dark Age of Camelot. Out of those, Everquest is probably the best, Dark Age of Camelot is a close second, but, I don’t think they’re anything like Motor City Online. I mean, multiplayer cars to multiplayer fantasy? Plus, don’t know about MCO, but any MMORPG is a HUGE repetitive timesink. Repetitive timesink being the key words here…
If you’re really open for trying some other MMOGs and don’t care about the type, you might want to try The Sims Online, online warcraft III, or Diablo II. Might even check out some of the new online games for the PS2 or XBox if you have either.
The main problem about most MMOG is that they’re repetitive, and sometimes it’s really hard to find people with your mentality to hang out with. But, it’s pretty amazing how many new MMOGs there are in development, so just do a search and see what you can find.
SWG comes out tomorrow!? Holy hell, for some reason I thought it wasn’t going to be out for months. Ok then, assuming they didn’t totally trash the Star Wars universe with this game I will almost certainly be playing it. I’m kind of anxious about it though. My past experiences playing MMOG’s are filled with disappointment. If they screw up the holy universe of Star Wars I can only imagine the consequences. Anyone else signing up for it?
You also need to decide if you like and want to play in a PvP environment. If you don’t, then you may wanna stick with EQ (non-PvP servers of course).
Keep in mind you need a REALLY good computer in order to run SWG at its most simple settings. I tried it at a friends house at the minimum setting in his machine that met (barely) the minimum requirements to play and its basically unplayable. If you have the power though its a beautifully crafted world.
Not to dash your hopes Bongmaster, but you may not be able to get SWG tomorrow. In order to reduce the sudden crushing load on the servers on launch day, Sony is having a limited release on the first day with more copies shipping in the next few weeks. Unless you’ve preordered it you may not be able to get it.
If this interview goes well on Friday and I actually get a job, I’ll be picking it up in the near future. I want to see what it’s like.
Yeah, and plus I spent about an hour reading the various message boards yesterday afternoon about SWG and I’m bracing myself for some disappointment. The beta testers NDA was lifted, and the internet was filled with heavy criticism for the game. Aside from the graphics which everyone agreed were outstanding I hear rumors of game stopiing bugs. I think I will wait about 2-3 months and dive back into it if it survives long enough.
Bump. I’m thinking about buying DAoC this tuesday because I just bought a new rig. Any new opinions?
Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?
DAoC is a little different now. There are new PvP battlezones for different levels starting at 20, player housing, a graphics engine update, and other stuff. The newest expansion (something about Atlantis) is mainly focused on high level players, but it does have more graphic updates which are always nice.
I’m waiting for WoW myself. I just cancelled my Everquest account (again. this has to be the 4th time) because I’m finding the end game too time consuming. Maybe I’ll give FFXI another shot.