In the past, I’ve greatly enjoyed the online team play of various games - shooters like Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Rainbow 6, strategy games like Starcraft (way back in the day) and yes, I was an Everquest fiend.
I’m pretty out of the loop these days when it comes to gaming but I do know that WoW and Guild Wars are popular in the MMORPG department. I prefer not to get sucked into another Everquest which is why I have purposely avoided WoW. The monthly fee is a consideration too - though I have heard Guild Wars has none. After Everquest though, I may just be MMORPG’d out for life.
Are there any other games out there I should know about? Any genre, as long as it has a fun online multiplay. (if it has a montly fee I would still like to entertain the idea but please let that be known in your post)
I like Counter-Strike Source. CSS is a great FPS and is practically the most popular one of all time. I LOVE playing Day of Defeat or Day of Defeat Source (a mod of Halflife which coincidently applies to CSS as well). Its a better team player game and it really gives you an appreciation for WWII vets. But the one that I love playing, and it currently free for multiplayer, is F.E.A.R. Its scary, its fun, and it provides all kinds of multiplayer gameplay.
Guild Wars, by ArenaNet is a MMORPG that is free to play, once you buy the game. You can do PvP or PvE play, or both if you want. There is the core game, (Prophecies) and 2 “standalone” expansions atm. If you do not buy the expansions right away, you will still have lots to do in Tyria. If you do buy the expansions, I recommend going with a merged account, so the characters on your account can travel between the different expansion’s lands and adventure there. Guildwiki is a good referance site to read up on quests or missions. DO NOT READ THE MISSIONS NOW, it will spoil the plot! It is much better if you get the plot as you go along and do the missions, and people don’t really spoil the plot for others in GW. One nice thing about this game is, ninja looting is not possible, and although the level caps at 20, that is when the game truly begins. There isn’t really any level grinding, though you can still work on titles, and getting elite skills or uber armor. If you want to see how the various characters look, watch the videos linked in this (zombie) thread, or go to the video section in the gallery at the official site.
Adding, if you buy Prophecies, enjoy the newbie area, Pre-Searing Ascalon while you can. Do all the quests, look around, and take copious screenshots. (You are told this as the game loads your character the first time in a cinematic, I’m not spoiling anything.) The world as you know it is vastly changed once you complete the first chapter and advance beyond Pre-Searing Ascalon. (The music in the second video is not what you hear as the cinematic plays, so there is still some mystery.)
Another vote for Guild Wars. Each Guild Wars character gets 8 skills (like spells you cast) to build a skill bar you play with. But you can choose from all the skills you’ve unlocked. So, it’s a little like Magic the Gathering, because you can also try to collect the rare skills (called elites). You can also have fun building your skill bar, much like it’s fun to deckbuild in Magic. Definitely merge your accounts… that way you can use skills from all the campaigns together.
I found that the Factions expansion has a lot of interesting PvP additions. The recent Nightfall expansion (from what I’ve seen thus far) has been a little more about PvE. I still like Prophecies, though… I play in the higher level maps there every chance I get.
Company of Heroes can get some wild shit going on, but I highly recommend playing with people in the know, only. It can be hard as hell, though you’re usually enjoying the hell out of yourself all the while.
In the was of FPS, look up “Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.” It was originally the multiplayer contingent to “Return to Castle Wolfenstein” before the company went bankrupt, so now it’s free on the 'net. There’s a wonderful mod for it called “True Combat” that’s also free and is the best realism-type FPS I’ve played in a long time.
One note on Guild Wars, and the reason I’m not still playing–if you get into PvP, you will pretty much have to keep up with the expansions to try to be competitive, or at least buy skill unlock packs, which I think cost just as much. The guild I was in wasn’t even a heavy PvP guild, yet I still had trouble (occasionally in PvE too, but not as often) because it was hard for me to fit into any build without Prophecies skills avaliable, and I would have never had a chance with a real PvP guild, or even one of our GLTs, without getting them. That doesn’t mean that the game doesn’t have it’s good points–some of them have already been mentioned–but I really wish I’d known that before I got into it.
In PvE you can choose from the skills you own/elites that character has captured for yourself, but your Nightfall heros (like henchmen, but much better because you get to set their attributes, and load what sklls they take, even telling them when and where to use them if you want to) get the pick of all the skills you have unlocked across your account. When you acquire a skill, elite skill, or weapon upgrade it is “unlocked” and available to your PvP characters. You can play PvE and be in a guild that does Guild vs. Guild matches and thus still do both PvE and PvP with one character.
Something else I didn’t mention. If you don’t like how your character is doing with it’s atttributes set in a certain way, you can go to a town or outpost, and subtract from one attribute and add to others. It is best if you put most of your focus on your primary profession, and (depending on the profession) maybe not put points in all the possible attributes for that profession, and possibly put a few points in a secondary profession skill. I usually end up playing my monk, and I have her set up with the majority of her attribute points in Divine Healing, Healing Prayers, Protection Prayers, and a modest Smiting attribute. My Mesmer/Necro is set up to be Fast Casting/Domination/Curses/Inspiration as another example. Many necromancers are either Curses, or Death Magic with some points in Blood Magic. Warriors focus on only one preferred weapon weapon class and ignore the others, putting points in non-weapon skills.
Day of Deafeat Source is seconded. If you have Valve’s Steam platform to buy games, there are a number of great games you can buy, of course, and Defcon is a pretty cool and addictive little online game.
Old school, Natural Selection is still the best online FPS/RTS mod ever, and while the server count isn’t great anymore, it’s still out there. Check it out if you have half-life (it’s a mod for original half-life)
Thios may not be exactly what you want, but Civilisation 4 + Warlords expansion (using downloadable patch) allows smooth multiplayer, with all players accessing www.gamespy.com.
Previously internet multiplayer seemed to run into firewall problems, but that’s gone.
Another vote for GuildWars. Everything that was wrong with Everquest - power gaming, imbalance, inability to solo, $14.95/month, ninja looting, spending all sorts of time doing jack squat - don’t exist on GW. I actually spend less time on GW than I did on EQ, but more time actually playing. 2-3 hours on Friday night spent going “/ooc 67 Rogue LFG!” no longer are a reality. Groups come quick and easy no matter the profession, and if you don’t want to group, you can always grab henchies. The AI is pretty good, but obviously if you do an all-henchie group they can be a little harder to work with, but not impossible (I’m about to wrap up Factions and I did it all-henchie with a few exceptions).
If I log on and play just for an hour, I actually get to play and get a little story going. I don’t spend that hour looking for a group, buying buffs, and running out to wherever the XP hotspot is that day. Love it.
Also, the game itself isn’t a ginormous resource hog like EQ. Minimize, no problem!
