Against my better judgement, I’ve been getting a hankering to dive into an MMO recently. The vast worlds with tons of back story generally present in this genre scratch my gaming itch better than most single-player games are able.
Played a ton of Ultima Online and Everquest back in the late 90’s. Ultima Online was by far my favorite MMO because the early days were pretty cutthroat, and you never quite felt safe. Spent two years in World of Warcraft, which was fun, but I quit once they started releasing expansions (made my gear basically worthless, which left a bad taste in my mouth). Played EVE Online with some dopers and had an amazing time rigging the in-game economy, but that got old after about a year. Mucked with Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online for a few weeks each, but neither really seemed to grab me.
In general I prefer to play a crafter/trader and manipulate the in-game economy to make my money. Primarily I like to play solo, but if I have 3-4 hours to kill I’d like to be able to group to do dungeons and such. I definitely like the necessary teamwork aspect of class-based groups. I’m like games with non-consensual PvP, because it adds a certain amount of danger and unknown to a game that PvE just can’t replicate. I want to interact with my fellow players, good or bad, and not feel like I’m just playing in an interactive chat room (if that makes sense).
So what game is hot right now that I should be getting into? I hear there’s a new Star Wars MMO coming out, should I be waiting for that? What else is available?
Lord of the Rings Online is a blast, and you can solo almost all the way to 65, as long as you don’t want to do raid content. Tradeskills are ok, but odd. It is free to play and you can buy stuff in their online store, or even pay a monthly fee for an account upgrade.
Tradeskills - they sort you into a triple, my character is a Historian, so I do scholar for the potions, weaponsmith to make weapons and farmer to grow supplies to make food [I have an alt that does the whole cooking thing]
I wish it was more like WOW/EQ where I could pick the triple professions, I would go for farmer cook and historian.
Unlike WoW there is not a lot of smacktalk, there is no real PVP actually. Very refreshing. I play on a German server, the people seem to be a range from kid through adult - my kinship calls me Oma [Granny] because I am the oldest one in the group =)
Despite being in a kinship, I still tend to solo and just chat with my friends. I can do probably 90% of the quests solo, and tend to do the ends of the epic quests that call for a group solo at about 10 levels above the listed level - I could scrounge groups but I like to solo. I normally run quests that are not epic that are about 3 levels higher than I am [I am currently 57 and running level 60 quests.]
Eve Online is a sandbox MMO. Yes there are missions [quests] in the high security areas, and lots of PVP in the low and no security sections, if you stick to hi sec you can mine, produce planetary products, build ships and ship parts. It is hard to describe - like I said, it is more CCP creates a universe and you decide how you want to live in it.
Also trade and manipulate the in-game economy. Trading isn’t really feasible until you train up Spaceship Command/Industrial to allow piloting of cargo ships but even your basic frigate has some room for cargo runs.
The MMO I currently enjoy play is Rift. It’s a lot like WoW, but improved (in my opinion, at least). The biggest difference is the class system. There are four classes, with different armor and “mana” types. Once you choose a class, you then which choose 3 out of that class’s 8 talent trees you want to use. Each tree has different benefits. It’s like a “build your own WoW” class. It’s impossible to put all your points in one tree, so every build is a partial hybrid. There’s a handy online talent calculator if you want to see how it works.
The crafting works well, but the auction house does not. Everyone gets 3 crafting/gathering skills. They’re easy to level and can make useful items, but it’s not worth it selling most anything on the AH.
There are PvP servers with open world conflict if you like that. And a variety of PvP battlegrounds for organized matches.
I think you can get a 7 day trial code from the Rift website. And current subscribers can give out trial codes, too.
Not true. “Station trading” or just setting up orders in a specific range and flipping them can easily be accomplished without ever undocking.
And, er, to answer the OP I’d say that EVE is still worth playing despite the fact that I’m a serious bittervet.
Aruvqan =) [though I also have a non corp freighter pilot for moving cargo when wardecced] Pretty much pure indy though I do have a harbi and a geddon in case I have to go out and kill something.
I have every industrial skill trained to at least 3, most to 4 and about 10 of them to 5. I can fly cap indys, my next project is building my own rorqual. I have all the planetary to 5 [on most of my characters, actually] and am the PI director of my corp. We build caps and whatever will sell.
Wanna buy an Aeon? I think the next project is a Nyx.
If you’re able to overcome the steep (and I mean steep) learning curve EVE is amazing. Once you start doing well enough you can pay for you subscription with in-game currency.
Hm, take it up with Cuncannon =) Thanks to the dammned Irene killing my internet and electricity I had a bit of an enforced vacation so my account has lapsed until i can talk hubby into paying for a month for me [I normally pay with in game money and didn’t get a chance to make enough for the month as I was ill and not playing for most of August on top of the inclement weather =( ]
I don’t understand this either but so far every developer that has gone free to play with a cash shop has increased their profits. Apparently gamers have about zero self restraint.
Frankly, if new content coming out making your gear outdated bothers you that much, I’m not sure that any of the traditional MMO-types are right for you. ISTM that that’s sort of the whole point of types like WoW, Rift, or upcoming SWTOR. However, if you do want to try any of those types, I’d still recommend WoW. Rift and SWTOR may have better overall graphics and some refined aspects, but WoW has an enormous player base and tons of content.
And if you want to have a feeling of completion, there’s a fairly large twink community too. You can cap your level anywhere short of 85 you like and you can do PVP and there are even guilds dedicated to raiding old content at that cap. For example, one of my guildmates has a 70 twink in a guild on another server that is raiding Black Temple and Sunwell once a week.
And if you just want to manipulate the economy, I know that’s done in WoW as well. I know one person on my server who had a goal to get all 10 characters on that server at the gold cap; last I heard, he had 8 or 9 of them at gold cap and that was several months ago, so I imagine he finished. I think he did it by brute force by literally throwing all of his gold to corner important parts of the market (like craftables and consumables) that everyone needs by continuously buying stuff out and posting it at inflated prices to force market values up then under pricing his competitors until they just gave up.
However, since you say you like crafting and economy stuff, there are other MMOs that are geared more toward that mindset. I’ve not played EVE, but I’m under the impression it’s much more like that than many others. But I imagine that got old precisely because there wasn’t that much new stuff to do. So maybe you will just benefit more from playing one for a while then moving on to a new one when it gets old.
It works for the same reason that a lot of the stuff like pets and mounts that Blizzard released in WoW grossed millions within hours of being released. The subscription based model has the people who play just a few hours a week or less paying the exact same as the people who play 8 hours a day or more. This actually creates a bizarre problem because it’s the hardcore players who cost the most because they demand the most content and require the most resources by simply being logged in the most.
When it goes free to play, they may lose the regular subscriptions from the very casual, but as most of the player base is probably interested in at least some other features they’ll probably still fork over a few bucks. But your hardcore players will probably pay for all kinds of stuff and end up paying a considerable amount more money than they would have otherwise.
Hell, I know someone in WoW who transfered multiple characters to another realm and paid the guild $1000 per character just to tag along on the raids and feed his toons gear and achievements, and he’s done it for at least 3 tiers of content. Obviously, it’s against the EULA for WoW, but the point is that this is the sort of person who, given the opportunity, would pay many times the $15 a month for the additional content or for additional gear or other advantages. Each person like that makes up for several of the casual players who pay little or nothing in addition to the initial purchase price.
I was regularly averaging about 300-600% profit without ever undocking and with only fiddling with my market orders for bout 45 minutes in the morning and again in the evening.
