I have just about given up on all modern MMOS!

[skeletore1]

I wan't to like it so much because I love Star Wars, but in the end the game just doesn't do anything for me. I For one think it is instanced way too much and players tend to sit in their ships while they Que up for instances/raids/pvp. That in itself ruined it for me. The planets are lifeless and you can play for hours questing on a planet and never see anyone. That right there is a big problem for me. Not to mention the fact that I go to server select and it says my server population is very high yet I never see anyone. This is unacceptable for a mmo. Please don't think I am biased WOW person because wow to me is really not much better. Everyone in wow sits in the major cities while queuing for things too. I don't like a game where I am out adventuring and don't ever run into other players. If I want this I will play Skyrim. I am not saying group finder is bad, but when they make it port you to where ever your group is going it takes away from the whole mmo feel and ruins player interaction. I just finished up the Hutt planet on SWTOR and so far I am left asking myself how the server population is high to very high yet no one is out in the world doing anything. To me this ruins the whole experience.

One other major issue is the zones don't connect to one another. Everyone has to run back to their ship and then fly to another planet to find out it's empty just like the last one you were on. I remember Everquest 1 where every zone is connected and you constantly see players running around everywhere. Yes there are some ports in Everquest but those only take you between expansions. Making zones not interconnected makes the universe feel small and ruins the game for me. I remember when I would die in Everquest and then have to run across Karans to get to my body. North Naranas was the biggest zone I have ever seen in a mmo. The whole point of a mmo is to be immersed in the world and when you instance the whole world and make it like WOW or SWTOR you ruin the immersion and player interaction.

Now a days when you get max level there is never any reason to visit a low level zone. If they made it where you spawn at the city you started in and had to run all the way back then that means every zone stays populated and in low level zones high levels are forced to run through to get back to body. This means every zone no matter level stays populated and things are continually going on everywhere. When they implement Que for instance, dungeon, raids it ruins the immersion completely because they port you there from where ever you are! It should be an adventure in itself to get to your group/dungeon/raid. Plus the other thing that totally ruined modern mmos is the fact that all the dungeons/raids are instanced. This is junk to me. I would love a old EQ feel to a modern mmo regardless of who makes it. where I could run to any dungeon and find tons of players adventuring inside. This way I can just go to the spot and lfg inside the dungeon.

Most zones in modern mmos are lifeless and the dungeons where you level and get better gear are lifeless and dead as well. Allowing only you in your group into a dungeon takes away from the whole point of making a game a mmo. I think for now I will stick to Everquest and will try Wizardry online when it comes out. I only hope that Everquest Next will stick to Everquest 1 roots and implement things to keep all zones and dungeone alive and full of players. Or I will have to give up on mmos forever!

 

[casualcolors]

For now Tera is the most progressive MMO. SWTOR's first and probably biggest problem was the way it attempted to cash in on a very basic template. Tera has its own set of issues but the netcode is admirably good, the game is the only Korean mmo that I've played that is not* an obnoxious grindfest, and it actually explores some new gameplay options with the full collision "action" style combat. I won't tell you that it will feel quite as fresh as your first online RPG, but for me it actually has sort of revived my enjoyment from the genre after years and years and years and yearrrrrrrrs playing cookie cutter MMO's.

 

[fantanel]

same here, i was very disappointed with SWTOR. It could have been Great. I was searching for better options, but nothing good. Pandas / gw2 in the future maybe?
D3 seams to be dieing, all my friends have given up on it.

i`m 30 years old, i`ve played allot of mmos. first games were on hc2000, that was about 8282883 years ago🙁

I may give TERA a try. Does it have a healthy community ? Do they have a good and alive dev team?

 

[casualcolors]

same here, i was very disappointed with SWTOR. It could have been Great. I was searching for better options, but nothing good. Pandas / gw2 in the future maybe?
D3 seams to be dieing, all my friends have given up on it.

i`m 30 years old, i`ve played allot of mmos. first games were on hc2000, that was about 8282883 years ago🙁

I may give TERA a try. Does it have a healthy community ? Do they have a good and alive dev team?

The servers Valley of Titans, Jagged Coast, and Basilisk Crag have populated communities although "good" is a relative term. You'll find a lot of the same caliber personalities that you would find in League of Legends, which is to say people who may not be particularly good at video games but won't let that get in the way of their mouth running to no end.

The Dev team is active and so far have restrained themselves and their cash shop to cosmetic items only. The other aspect of the game which is new is that you can buy 30 days of gametime on a "Chronoscroll" from their cash shop, and then sell that in game. It's their way of gutting the gold-selling market and keeping things in their own control and to a large extent it has worked. The price of chronoscrolls themselves have dipped to and stayed at about the gold equivalent of 1.5 hours of farming at max level. So in that regard the game doesn't have a monthly fee for the time being, at least not for me.

I think Tera does more things right than it does wrong, and by a wide margin. The combat is the most engaging that I've experienced in an MMO (particularly tanking), even if it probably wouldn't lend itself well to WoW's pseudo-e-sport style. Tera's combat is much more like making chess moves, since abilities can potentially lock you into long animations, can miss entirely, and may use a lot of resources.

Tera also seems to have done a good job in getting people to leave towns. The Guild vs Guild and PvP-Vanarch system that they've got up and running now are good enough reasons for people to get out of town and go fight. All in all, it's a good experience and I would say that even if I decided to quit the game in six months for instance, it would have been well worth the money spent. I'm in the same boat as you age-wise and experience-wise, and so to me a special appreciation goes to Tera for actually delivering quite convincingly on their promises regarding the combat system and some of the throwbacks to older MMO's that were perhaps more of a time-sink, but also felt more rewarding in the end (and with that I am referencing Tera's crafting and enchanting system, not the leveling system which can be expedited in about 5-6 days if you play hard).

 

[fantanel]

thank you for the detailed answer.
I will check youtube.

 

[AntiZig]

check GW2 out. They have made a rather large side-step in MMO genre, which I think might intrigue a lot of different players. It's due to release at the end of august, so hopefully a month or so after that you'll have some articles or opinions on what the late game feels like. The beta tests so far have been lots of fun, but I'm looking for what will the release version turn out to be like.

The newb zones were extremely populated (to a point where people got shuffled to overflow instances) but changes to key game mechanics actually made the number of players running along side you a welcome thing rather than aggravating.

The biggest selling point for me is the fact that there's no monthly fee, you pay up front like for regular game and then you're free to game as much and as long as servers are up. There's a cash shop that has been promised to only house cosmetic items and such, but seeing how the game hasn't released yet, I'm still holding my fingers crossed.

@casualcolors: that's actually pretty interesting what you explain about being able to pay subscription fee with in-game money. pretty neat, but at the same time, keeps you playing, while in the end the devs still get their cash from someone other than the end user of that scroll. I must admit that's pretty ingenious of them.

 

[fantanel]

Tera looks great, but I do not think it`s what I`d enjoy. I will look for a trial / free weekend, something like that, before I commit.

about GW2, is the beta open for everyone? I saw some movies and the movement of the characters / physics seam strange.

 

[casualcolors]

It has a free 7 day trial with no download attached (hosted on cloud). You can't PM people unless they PM you first, and you can't adjust the UI and such during the free trial, but on the other hand you don't have to download anything either. Should at least give you a modest feel for the low level combat. I think the trial goes up to like level 23.

 

[fantanel]

thank you, will check this WE if time will allow it.

 

[Balrogue]

Hey mate I think you should give WoW another try, now here me out will you. WoW at first is a terrible grind from leveling up to getting gear but once you reach 85 and have great PvP gear it's an immense amount of fun. There's honestly nothing like being in Skype with a couple of your mates doing arenas at 2 in the morning.

Best of luck any ways mate.

 

[casualcolors]

Hey mate I think you should give WoW another try, now here me out will you. WoW at first is a terrible grind from leveling up to getting gear but once you reach 85 and have great PvP gear it's an immense amount of fun. There's honestly nothing like being in Skype with a couple of your mates doing arenas at 2 in the morning.

Best of luck any ways mate.

😱

First time I've seen WoW described as a "grind" anywhere but the wow forums lol.

 

[AntiZig]

GW2 beta isn't open but there are free key giveaways going on right now from various websites. If you search around you can probably get one, if not, the game will come out in 1.5 months, at which point you'll see the release features + multitude of reviews and there probably will also be some form of free trial.

regarding physics, not sure what you meant there. The thing I'm still getting used to myself is that ranged characters can attack/use skllls while moving. It's useful for kiting because now you only have to time your skills to combo effects and such, where before you had to time the distance between you and the mob to use the skill in time before the mob reached you and started swinging