I’ve been a World of Warcraft player since the beginning of Burning Crusade, and have been spoiled by the game’s ease of use, variety of gameplay (10 and 25 man raids, 5 mans and heroics, daillies, crafting, world / BG pvp, etc.), active community (which gives us excellent blogs like Wowinsider and tools like Wowhead), and how customizable the interface is, which can make it seem like a different game. I have about twenty add-ons running all the time, not counting class specific ones, and all of these are flawlessly updated with a single program.
I don’t think there is anything revolutionary about the game’s content, but it is just so well put together, polished, and filled out. I have dabbled with other MMOs. I was drawn to Guild Wars because the lack of subscription fees, but considering nearly the entire game is instanced, I don’t know if I would consider it a proper MMORPG. While it had its charm, it seemed kind of meh.
I was more impressed with City of Heroes, which has an incredible character creation process and probably the most original setting for an MMO that I've seen. But the few times I've gone back to try it, it hasn't hooked me. It feels strange not having an inventory, the graphics seemed kind of murky (although that may be my set up) and the instanced areas seemed repetitive (I think every warehouse I went into was identical).
The rest of what I know has been what I read. I heard EVE was a spreadsheet nightmare and Everquest was just a nightmare. How do other MMOs stack up?
EVE is an economics game. Fun if you like crunching numbers, but it’s more of an unpaid job than WoW is. (The guilds are called corporations, and that only hints at how far it goes.)
Unfortunately, my MMO experience doesn’t go much further than the A-listers, but NCSoft has a decent game list, some of which are free to play. No idea about the communities, though. Lineage is a huge game on par with WoW, although it’s more Asian-centric.
I’ve heard vague but interesting things about Ryzom; might be worth checking out.
MMORPG.com has a comprehensive list of MMOs which might have something you’d find interesting.
I wish I could give you better ratings on some of these games, but half of what I’ve played you’ve tried out already, and the other half is dead or dying.
Thanks for the links Bosstone. Some of those look pretty cool. I’ll definitely check them out.
None of the individual things I mentioned about WoW or the other games are necessarily deal breakers. I’m more interested in the overall package. One thing I do like is designers who recognize that games are supposed to be fun, and although the grind is a necessary evil, that doesn’t have to be all its about. I’m an unrepentant casual .
Lord of the Rings Online is basically a WoW clone, but I enjoyed it more than WoW. Classes were a lot more interesting to me and the world didn’t feel like an amusement park, taking two steps and finding yourself in a completely different manufactured environment. If you’re looking for a change of pace but not something too different, it’s a good choice.
I figured these two would be mentioned (along with Age of Conan). Just wanted the input before I pay for a new game in addition to a subscription.
I could definitely go for some new class types. Sometimes I feel a bit constrained by the WoW roles. All my warrior ever did was tank and I’d love to level a hunter but I know it would be a pain finding groups at the end. So I stick with my Shaman. I imagine it’s like this in any MMO to some extent though.
Out of curiosity, how closely does LOTRO follow the Tolkien canon?
LotRO is pretty spot on with Tolkien canon; my understanding is they work with the Tolkien Estate to ensure the game stays true to Tolkien lore (no cite, I just remember having read something about it some time ago). I think it’s better than just a “WoW clone”, personally - when I first started playing LotRO I honestly couldn’t understand why anyone would play WoW once they’d played LotRO. It’s a visually impressive game with lots of little things making it quite immersive. It isn’t without its warts, of course, but I only had two real complaints about the game: the “virtues” that required killing several hundred of one mob type in one zone (I think they’ve since been adjusted), and the fact that the overarching storyline requires a group. With the group size being 6 and only 4 of us playing on what turned out to be a low population server, we ended up at a point where we were stuck on the story arc quests. Obviously, being on a higher population server would help with the latter issue.
As for Age of Conan, it’s a fun game through the newbie town of Tortage (approximately level 1-22), but starts to stumble after that. The further you get from Tortage, the less interesting and immersive the game is. The tradeskill system is also incredibly painful - you can start gathering at level 20, but you can’t craft until level 40, and advancing gathering skills requires getting lucky with extremely rare drop items (which you will of course also need for crafting). It really seemed like Funcom put all their effort into Tortage and then released the game hoping they’d have time to fill in the gaps post-Tortage before people noticed the lack in the higher levels. I don’t think they succeeded though - they’re doing massive server merges (cite) and seem to be struggling. I could recommend the game for an entertaining single-player experience for the low levels, but not as an MMO.
Definitely an oldie but goodie, but I loved Dark Age of Camelot back in the day. It’s still going strong from what I see. Definitely a good one if you like pvp stuff.
If you’re looking for freebies, my brothers seem to enjoy Perfect World.
It can be if you want to get into stuff like figuring out the most cost efficient way of turning asteroids into battleships. But if you just want to go kill other players, it’s not that bad. I mean it’s still more complicated than other MMOs, and there are utilities that can help you decide what skills and parts you want, but those aren’t strictly necessary.
You know, Eve ruined MMOs for me. It was the first one I ever played, and it has made all other MMOs look uninteresting and silly by comparison.
Oh and the PVP in Eve… man you better not have a weak heart.
I tend to cycle between WoW, City of Heroes, and EVE Online every couple of months. Because of EVE’s unique training mechanism, I keep an active account there even when I’m not playing so that I can continue to train.
You should give the EVE trial a run around the block, though you really can’t get a good feel for the simulation (game? hah!) in only 10 days. EVE has the most diverse ways of playing, IMO. You could play for years and nearly never leave the hanger, just playing the market (if you like toying with Auctioneer in WoW, you’ll love this). Or you could just run missions/PVE. Or you could be a miner. Or build a manufacturing empire. Or be a mule, making your living hauling from one place to another. Or some combination of all of them.
EVE is unusual in that there are no “levels”; with reasonably available equipment, a sharp one-month-old player can take down a careless three-year-old player. There are no separate realms or servers; all EVE players can interact with each other.
Tactical battle mistakes in EVE are costly; if you lose your ship in battle, then…you lose your ship, and its fittings and contents and possibly a few other things, possibly costing you months of work.
EVE isn’t for everyone, but I urge you to give it a month or two to really experience how it is so much different than all the other MMOs.
Two that haven’t been mentioned, with quick reviews:
Anarchy Online. An oldie but a … Uhm… Mediocre-y. Sci-fi future / offworld setting with a lot of interresting ‘lore’ ideas that give reasons why you can die so many times and not worry about it. Also a very easilly crockable game with the right classes (my friend and I made some uber robot-builders and just had our robots run missions for us over and over). If you play for free, you get in-game advertisements on billboards that can get really annoying, and yes, the game is grind-tastic, but they do give you the chance to get upgrades pretty much after every little thing you do, so the rewards are there. The game is old as heck, and the graphics and animations really, -really- show it.
9Dragons: Beautiful MMO, and like candy if you enjoy kung-fu movies. Various clans with various martial arts styles. The huge downfall of the game is the grind. Oh the grind. It’s like they hired -no one- to do content beyond the quests, which are few and far between. If you don’t like just running around killing things for xp, this one ain’t for you, although I’d suggest watching youtube clips and the like (especially the clan cinematics) to see something really pretty.
I remember browsing the EVE forums two years ago or so and read about the first person to reach some milestone in skill points, like 30 mil or so. The guy had absolutely no combat skills and barely any piloting skills. He was entirely science-oriented, and basically just sat in his hangar creating and researching. That impressed the hell out of me, although I suspect action-oriented gamers would find it dreadfully boring.
Oddly enough, being an accountant in real life, EVE really is like work … in many ways. Im the mining director for my corp, and I have to balance out the ores we need to build [we just finished a freighter and orca, and should have another freighter in production starting up about now] against what we need to sell to get the more rare minerals we cant mine in high sec areas. I need to also pay the salaries of the baby corp miners who are slaving away for me or buy the ore from other corps miners who are mining with my fleet - I need to keep an eye on the market so I know what a fair price for the ore actually is. I need to maintain teh mining fleet [right now it is an orca 5 hulks, 2 mackinaws, 2 retrievers, a skiff and some odds and ends as loaner ships] and the equipment used [mainly mining crystals and drones]
Im normally lucky in that I can be out with the mining fleet while I am at work, but this is hell week in my real life job and I cant be online as much right now=(. Im actually on a quick break while the financial dB at work is updated … but I hope that I can actually get into the game after lunch again …
no mention of Neocron*? Not a great game, but if people are mentioning Anarchy Online, which, imo, was about as godawful a game as one can imagine, than Neocron should be mentioned. Basically a Cyberpunkish future set in a major city, divided into 4 districts, and the outlying wastelands. You switch between normal mode (where you can use your mouse to select things) and combat mode (which is like a first person shooter). You can bionic/cyber implants and upgrades and all that sorta stuff, plus you get your own apartment right from the start which I always liked. Oh, and there’re strip clubs
Like I said, nothing terribly special, but it’s pretty neat for awhile. Free download and I think a free month’s trial, so worth a look I guess
I have a question about LOTRO. How much grinding do you have to do?
I played WoW for a while, and the main thing that made me quit was the grinding. The lower levels are interesting and fun, but then you get to a certain point, and suddenly you’re spending mind-numbing hours doing the same thing over and over and over again so you can level, or finish a quest, or get a specific drop. The only reason I played it for as long as I did was because I kept making new characters when the old ones got grindy. Once I’d tried out all the classes and played both alliance and horde, I got bored with the game and quit.
I don’t mind if you have to grind for something every now and then, but when I’m spending half of my time in the game bored out of my mind, there’s a problem.
You can play the entire game through and have a great time with a minimal grind. You can easily reach the level cap and complete an enormous number of quests without worrying too much about the grind. The grind only kicks in at the margins: if you are looking to perfect your virties, optimize your gear, master all tiers of crafting, etc. The game is very casual-friendly and enjoyable. If you want to have the toughest toon in town, it will take grinding.
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