Lets talk MMORPGs, I want your opinion

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I think WoW's primary strength is that it plays well on low-end hardware. There are too many MMO's that are completely unplayable on a low-end card graphics card, and let's face it, that's what 90% of the computers out there have.
 
I'm done with MMOs unless they start selling the server side software.

The biggest problem with MMOs is all the other idiots lol
 


Thats what I've been doing. Had enough with chat rooms with gaming content. Wake me up when they start concentrating on the games again and not time sinks, member retention and socializing. 😴
 





Do Not Underestimate CannedTurkey's point.




Tom's published an interview the other day with one of the creators of the Unreal engine - Interesting read if you haven't yet... Anyways, one of the topics was PC gaming in general, and his take on that was that the difference between a low end and high end computer is now large enough that you can no longer create a game that runs on both which is still (graphically) interesting on the better machine. He offers this up as a large reason PC Gaming isn't the force in the industry it used to be, and to be honest it makes sense: $200~$300 for a console, or $1200~2000 or more on a high performance PC. YES, the PC can do way more than the console can. But if you just want to play games and aren't that particular that it has to be a PC, then why spend??

Regarding WoW specifically: It's just plain FUN to play. Not hard to learn. You get constant positive reinforcement through lots of little quests and frequent leveling. And by the time you might get bored with the combat system, or the endless grinding of mobs/trade skills, you will more than likely have joined a Guild and have online 'friends' to keep you playing. It's hardly perfect, but does accomodate a wide range of playstyles (PvP, PvE, Hardcore FFX~style Raiding, etc etc etc...). And you can keep playing it on the old POS box your dad gave you...
 


I would say WAR will infact break that. DAOC had more than 500k at its peak and WAR is certainly going to appeal to all of them, many warhammer fans and just pvp fans in general. With 600k+ people signed up for beta I will be very surprised if it doesnt break 500K at some point.
 



FoM was in open beta testing for more than a year but then they made it pay-to-play and a year later the company running the game decided to pull the plug. The biggest problems were that the game wasn't advertised much, the main sponsor (company paying for the servers) was some mobile phone company with no experience with games, there was no free trial for new players for trying out the game before paying for it, and the development team was very small. The developers are now trying to simplify the game in order to reduce expenses associated with keeping the game online and are hoping to make it free in the future.
Original trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uIMBk0fyzM&feature=related
Another video (4:00 to the end shows some funny/scary fights with the aliens): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQU5HT334v8&feature=related
 
WoW was fun but now i think its time to look to the future. I'm slowly pacing myself over to Warhammer: Age of reckoning. If they make it right, i believe its going to be a real competition between the both (especially with new RVR)

hint: Realm vs Realm
 
Although I've only played a few MMO's, I have observed WOW and played Everquest or been briefed on the mechanics of many others. I currently play City of Heroes. From what I can tell its the only MMO based on Comic Books that exists. You have complete control over character creation, look, powers pools, and sub abilities to include a invention system and badge system for small bonuses to your abilities. The game is multithreaded and works well with a duel core system. I have played it on a amd 3800+ duel core with as little as a 7600gs vid card and recieved great results. Contant free updates to the game and ability to play Player Vs Player in various zones or play a villian if you wish. Try it out for something different.
 
Okay been keeping up with this thread and others when I was in Iraq. Ive played WoW since the beta. Loved the game when it first came out. I was playing City of Heroes before I moved to WoW. That game to me was a huge and terrible grind with no rewards. I moved into WoW and started a paladin. Great class when it came out. I could kill and heal all day with almost no down time. Here is when the problems come in. I wanted to be like all the cool kids and raid for "epix". I spent countless hours grinding rep, farming mats, creating fire resist gear (Molten Core and Blackwing Lair at that time) and had a blast raiding. New content was released and we stormed through that like it wasnt anything. PvP became a huge thing and they started making game changes to balance the PvP and PvE. Tier 3 armor became strictly PvE armor (most of it anyway) and I wasnt able to use my new goodies to slaughter people in PvP. That wasn't bad, but it was quite annoying. Then the expansion dropped!!!

I beta tested WoW:BC and was excited about all the new changes, armor, instances and everything about it. Soon as I ran to the portal, everything I earned and had worked so hard for was almost worthless. No biggie, farm, craft and create new stuff and do it all over again. The raids were new, fight mechanics were different, it was a blast. Now we get to where we are now. Our guild is currently in Sunwell, the new patch dropped and PvE has been balanced around PvP arena matches. Nothing is really fun, its a grind to get anything in the game, and most of the cool rewards are just given away to anyone who has a 70. I dont mind people playing casually and getting nice stuff, but giving it away takes from everyone.

Back in the day, you could always tell who raided or pvp'd, they had really nice stuff that they earned. Now everyone pretty much looks the same. My opinion is that an MMO should weed out the people who just log on for free things and the people who work their asses off to get nice thing. If you play any MMO, there should be some type of grind, crafting, waiting for spawns and such, raiding, and pvp so you have a variety of things to earn nice rewards. If you are playing it and disagree with most of that stuff, you are wasting your time. Im currently playing WoW still, but I'm waiting until Warhammer Online comes out. Hopefully it will be a new experience!
 
Amen to:
Hitman04 wrote:
Back in the day, you could always tell who raided or pvp'd, they had really nice stuff that they earned. Now everyone pretty much looks the same. My opinion is that an MMO should weed out the people who just log on for free things and the people who work their asses off to get nice thing. If you play any MMO, there should be some type of grind, crafting, waiting for spawns and such, raiding, and pvp so you have a variety of things to earn nice rewards. If you are playing it and disagree with most of that stuff, you are wasting your time. Im currently playing WoW still, but I'm waiting until Warhammer Online comes out. Hopefully it will be a new experience!

I also raided for epix and while i agree with allowing the pvp'ers their own gear etc, its free. And its far superior to a large portion of the raiding epix... why spend 6 months gearing 25 people up to finish end game instances for that badass sword you want, when you could pvp for an hour a week and get a better weapon, and probably a few armor peices in less than a month. (should note that EACH raid, IF you dont die AT ALL will take you about 4-5 hours on AVERAGE to complete)

So whats the deal?

While i love playing wow, yes it doesnt have great mechanics or freedom. But it does have over 10 million subscribers, and yes it is growing and no it wont stop. Even when AoC and WaR come out wow will still be at the forefront of MMORPG's, why? Because Blizzard Entertainment (Vivendi) has way too many tricks up their sleeves and the ratio of hardcore MMORPG'ers with time on their hands and a deep understanding of a truely remarkably made game PALES in comparison to your average joe gamer with 2 hours after work to play that doesnt care that wow doesnt have a point allocation micro management system - as long as they can sneak up and kill unsuspecting victims with gear they worked oh so little to obtain.

So lets hope that when AoC and War come out, that the transition from games like WoW weeds the true gamers from the casuals, therefore creating a kind of boundary between people like Purplerat and his first time experience with a bunch of hardcore pen and paper D&D'ers... so we can all have fun, without complaining about the other side encroaching on 'our turf' of game.
 
WoW was my first MMO and so far only MMO. I had been into RTS and RPG long before playing WoW and my WC3 addiction is what really attracted me to WoW. I was under the impresion that WoW would be a massive WC3 where instead of a single person controling an army, individual players made up that army. Blizzard made claims about how we would see epic battles and all that hype but I must have missed them because the only somewhat epic battles I remeber were the slide show city raids just before the server would crash. Don't get me wrong I did love WoW at one time, it was alot of fun, I just got bored with it because WoW is missing the war and in it's current state feels more like a job than a fun past time.

So I have been on the lookout for a new MMO. I know some good ones are to be found but I don't want to start in a older MMO being so far behind then just drop it for a new release. That being said WAR and AoC got my attention rather quick. At first I thought WAR was the game for me with the focus on world pvp but the more I learned about it, the less I was interested in it. I know Warhammer came before WoW and WAR is not a just another WoW but it is looking to similar to WoW for me. Another thing I don't like about WAR is it is being published by EA and I HATE EA. I don't care if EA has nothing to do with the production and maintenance of the game itself but the fact of it is if I purchase the game and open an account EA would be included in those profits and I just can't allow myself to do that.

So I am going to AoC. The more mature and realistic setting in a violent barbarian fantasy world appeals to me so much more than anything else on the horizon or avaliable now. No it's not just the boobs I am interested in, in fact I wish that was mabey not in the game because it's going to attract alot of young teens and imature dip ****. I like the idea of not having to chose a side when making my chacter with an open world to make enemies or allies with. Then on top of that player/guild made cities/keeps to defend and attack just sounds awsome. I hope AoC turns out to be a good game and I think it will. If not mabey the competition with WAR and AoC will help get Blizzard moving again because wow is just way to stale atm. I think Blizzard is expecting WotLK to fix that but by then alot of people will already be gone. Depending on how into AoC I get I may or may not be playing the next WoW Xpack.

 
I've played quite a lot of mmorpg but i think they suck. I started with runescape, then got a p2p account, tried battleon, maplestory, tales of pirates etc. That was only a few years ago when i was in primary school. I found that i had to grind to get money and lv up but i never got satisfied after and during grinding. Also a runescape membership is really not worth it $5 per month so i switched to become a FPS gamer which is a lot better. P2P like world of warcraft costs so much to play but to buy a decent shooter game like CoD4 would only cost me $35 and i can play it forever until the disc breaks. MMORPGs get u addicted.
 



Totally agree with you on some notes. Honestly I wouldn't play a game that had no reward after hard work, but to me, WoW "did". And yes, MMOs can be very addictive, but I wouldnt compare COD4 multiplayer to WoW multiplayer. Two different worlds there, not because of the gameplay, but because you get the option of playing who you want to in FPS, MMOs are based off of the server you play on.