MMORPGs

I haven't touched an MMORPG since I quit playing Everquest around 8 years ago. I sort of had to choose between the MMO or my marriage (I made the right choice). I only play games with pause buttons these days.

 

Currently playing Perfect World which is FTP and also going to renew my subscription for Warhammer Online once we've got a steady income again

 

Playing Lord of the Rings Online right now, now that is free to play (have a Premium account though), and it got me a little hooked. It's fun though, so far. I like it better than WoW, story-wise, grahics-wise. On the role playing servers it's played by grown ups. Polite folks, helpful even, and they tend to speak in whole sentences.

 

I tried to play WoW once, but they (the registration system) wouldn't let me. Oh well.

 

I stopped playing WoW after seven days of the ten day trial. Vile stuff. I noticed that at the time I had been skilling for three hours. The horror. Mind you, I do the same in LotRO but curiously, it's more fun there. The 'you gotta pay if you want more' is what's pissing me off about that game.

Yesterday I blew 300 game gold on buying the wrong horse (for two characters - 200 gold per horse, worth 50 gold on re-sale), after I bought the riding ability with those game points. They wrote nowhere that you can only use that ability with the 500 gold horses, not with the 200 gold horses. An-noy-ing.

 

Back in the day, when Everquest first introduced mounts they were major status symbols. They cost something like 10,000 platinum, which was a fortune in that game. You couldn't fight on them. They just let you get around the world a bit faster, and of course, you could let others see how "superior" you were by parading your horse around.

I gave in and purchased a big white horse. Big waste of money and time, in retrospect. But still, as I recall a few times when players would train large groups of mobs into rest areas, that horse helped me to ensure that there would be plenty of slower player fodder to make a clean escape. Good times!

 

My vote was "Never palyed a MMORPG". Are any recommended? I do have the discs for D&D Stormreach Online, though I never played the game. Is it worth while? I believe it went free, correct? Does anyone know if it's still running?

 

Never played a MMORPG. I don't particularly like online play, except maybe for shooters, but even for those kind of games I feel that it costs too much time. This is because if I play an FPS online I prefer not to get owned all the time and thus need to practice a lot.

For RPGs, I prefer to play slowly and at my own pace, and don't like the endless grind that seems to make up 99% of the gameplay of most MMORPGs. I tried it in Diablo II and got bored of that real quick.

 

I played Diablo II ages ago, but haven't touched it since I sussed out its Skinner-box forced compulsion mechanic that mascqueraded as "gameplay". WoW just sounds like more of the same, only in a more refined formula, and with its commercial success every other MMORPG stuffs itself with the same dull, one-click combat and item collection grind to try and hook unwary gamers.

I wouldn't touch an MMO with Gordon Brown tied to the end of a 10' electrified cattleprod.

 

Or you could just give it a try before forming an opinion..

I'm not gonna defend WoW, it's not a great game, and it's certainly not an RPG of any sort.

Those that are saying the gameplay isn't great are kind of missing the point. The fun doesn't come from what you do, but who you do it with, and despite the reputation the community has, there are some awesome folks on there.

 

Normally, I'd be in 100% agreement. But WoW's legendary reputation for addictiveness means that I've given it a wide berth. I wasted far too much time on Diablo II back in the day to risk it again... and if the WoW community is anything like as annoying as D2's, then I stand by my self-enforced ignorance.

 

I'm aware that most people keep playing MMO's due to the social interaction, rather than the gameplay. However, this is not something that I care about. And I certainly don't want to be forced to play with a group of people in order to be able to play a certain part of the game because it happens to be a dungeon that is practically impossible to solo.

 

I solo'd the larger part of Guild Wars. Did not join a guild. Had to coop at a few moments to finish a key mission. I ploayed for 3 month and stopped for 2 years for a short return of 4 weeks.

The lack of gameplay, story and exploring was just to much. I do like the 8 skill approach.

 

I am just solo-ing the nominally free to play LoTrO and it is semi-addictive. I have three characters because I felt I needed complementing crafting skills, since the stuff you find or buy is usually crap. Best class IMO is the hunter.

It's the usual grind of FedEx quests, but the setting is rather nice. I prefer it over WoW. The 'you need to pay for more' stuff still pisses me off.

 

They are the only business model for mmo's that fail to attract a crowd though. No subscribers? Make it free, wait until loads of people have signed up and then slowly, oh so slowly and stealthily try to charge them a little bit here and a little bit there but not too much cause then they just disapear. I am wary about free to play MMO's, do they not attract an even more juvenile crowd than WoW? Aren't they bugging you about "premium accounts" and stuff all the time? Can they keep their world updated and online? Is it possible to get ingame help?

I play WoW have done so almost without break since release, haven't tried any other MMO's and most likely won't as although I do not regret the immense amount of time spent on WoW I do not want to repeat it. What I have seen during these five years though is "WoW-killers" coming and going. For the first few weeks everyone is all about how much better this new MMO is then in the fourth or fifth week you find these guys doing something incredibly mundane in WoW because a few weeks worth of gaming was all these new games had in them and after that it was more fun selling copper in the Orgrimmar auction house.

 

Tal,
I have a so-called 'Premium Account', because I purchased a pre-free-to-play license (the old fashioned way, by buying the game), and still have to pay for extras and basics alike. My buy only gave me three more character slots and a small discount on purchases.

Except for that nuisance, the game is nice, as MMOs go.

 

The free ones I've played have always been free but had the option to buy things such as different outfits, crafting items, mounts, hyper-XP and such to advance quicker. Nothing necessary but a LOT of people spend a small fortune just to get to the highest levels quickly... Then just sit there doing the dailies! Pretty much the money comes from other peoples' impatience it seems.