Koki on 3/5/2012 at 07:26
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No, don't worry, I won't be masturbating over EVE again. Instead, this is a general MMO thread in which you, my fellow TTLG
members, answer me the following questions:
What MMOs have you played in your life?
What was your opinion of them?
What are you looking forward to?
If it makes you feel more eager I'll say I need this for a thing.
Thirith on 3/5/2012 at 07:46
I was part of the Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies beta tests and enjoyed both well enough, but not so much that I wanted to continue playing. I also did brief trials of World of Warcraft and EVE Online, neither of which really grabbed me. I'm too much of a single player/story whore to get pulled into MMOs.
Having said that, though, there were definitely cool individual moments in most of those that I liked a lot - but never so much that I wanted to play any of them on a regular basis.
Volitions Advocate on 3/5/2012 at 07:56
Played Star Wars Galaxies when they offered a 14 day trial. I dont' remember much so it obviously wasn't memorable. I played Everquest a bit in high school, again, don't remember it at all. I never really go for them at all, subscription fees are dumb imho, so I never play them. Having said that though, when I have time, I plan to dive into Star Trek online a bit, since its free now.
mothra on 3/5/2012 at 12:39
I don't know if Vindictus counts as an MMO, I only played 4player coop vs AI and it was pretty fun. Everything else, that means everything MMO-ish was bad. Like the overpopulated starter town, tons of running around for resources, , the microtransactions, waiting for the boat on the shore to get into the very linear and small levels....the only thing that held me was the combat which did not feature any of the boring wack-a-mole combat usual in MMOs but a nice sword combo system and being able to use your environment as weapons.
icemann on 3/5/2012 at 13:43
I played Ultima Online for 5 years, back when the game was good which was prior to the separation of servers into pvp and non pvp halves. Prior to the separation the game was excellent and had a fear factor in it that I've never experienced in any other game ever. That fear of losing all your items that you worked your butt off to get/make from a damn PK (player killer) was just.... a extremely unique experience.
Bad sides to the game even when it was in its good era was lack of quests, as the game was more about finding your place in the world and going for it. Being able to own your property ingame was both good and bad as other players could sneak in, and if you lost your house then you lost all the possessions in there. Awesome game none the less before the PvP changes.
After that I played Anarchy Online for a year. This game had a great storyline behind it and setting but the gameplay was just so geared towards pvp, raiding and partying (compared to UO which had good singleplayer stuff) that I got bored of it very quickly. Stuck with it for a year due to the amount of my friends who were playing it.
A few years later I got into the Blizzard beta for WoW and that game had me head over heels HOOKED for a very long time. This game gave me all the things that Anarchy hadn't. The singleplayer end of things had enough content to keep me busy for a very long time. A year into playing I took over GM (guild master) duties of the guild I was in (Beers and Bourbons) which in itself had been a guild started by some real life friends. It was then that I really got into the guild running end of the scale with recruiting new members, organizing guild runs, guild raids. Overall a great experience that taught me leadership skills + how to resolve disputes etc. Ran the guild for 2 years (reaching over 300 members) before switching servers over to an aussie one (I'd been on an americain one prior) and joining a friends guild for a while before starting up BnB anew on the new server.
Ran the guild on the aussie server for about 3 years roughly give or take reaching 230 members and unlike on the US server did moderately well on the raiding end of the scale + this time I organized retro raids each Sunday of older raid zones from earlier expansions to give members the opportunity to see those places. Overall an awesome experience.
Then nearing the end of the Wrath of the Lich King with university taking up a considerable amount of my time, getting into a new relationship (which I'm still in as of this post) + really wanting to go and play through all of the great games that I'd missed out on playing/hadn't beaten due to all the years combined spent playing mmo's, and getting more into the games development end of things (on the programming and game design end), I made the decision to leave the game. I briefly came back for 3 months a year later (2011) to see how the new expansion was, but this time round unlike Wrath I sped through all of the new singleplayer content (not counting all the new lowbie quests) and left the game for good.
Since then playing through all of the games I didn't play or didn't beat has been + developing my own games has been my main past time when I have the time. Star Wars Old Republic interests me somewhat but with so many games in my backlog to play through I may never get around to giving it a try. Time will tell.
Trance on 3/5/2012 at 14:42
4 years of EVE. It took a long time to realize just what a grand waste of money that game was; I never got to the point where I was enjoying the game. I was always either bored to tears or nervous and paranoid of an imminent gank. Neither situation is what I'm after in a video game. I am NOT a fan of always-on PVP.
I wanted spaceship PVP without the stress and setup of EVE, and more importantly a PVP setting that I could play whenever I wanted instead of when my in-game wallet would allow it. So I got into Star Trek Online. Neat combat system, definitely more active and fast-paced than EVE's, and apart from a few bugs relating to group missions the game is pretty well-constructed. I go back to it every so often for a month or so before I get bored again.
Also did City of Heroes for nigh-on 8 years, playing it with a bit more regularity than I did EVE or STO. It was another game with a quick-paced combat system comfortable to someone who grew up on late-90s twitch shooters. I walked away from it for good when the F2P system came out. I couldn't take the obnoxious degree to which the microtransaction store was shoved in your face.
Right now I don't have an MMO. I tend to look for games that deviate from the WoW formula, and ones whose combat systems cross into other genres. Also if a game like World of Tanks counts as an MMO, then I'm looking forward to Mechwarrior Online which I hear will be like WoT but with hundred-foot tall fighting robots. I had heard before Tribes Ascend came out that there was going to be some kind of attempt to make another Tribes game as an MMO, so I'm tentatively interested in that, though I've not heard any details yet.
catbarf on 3/5/2012 at 15:31
-EVE. It was fun for a while, but the risk of losing everything is crippling to a new player, and in the end I only played a couple of months.
-Planetside. I played this way back during their 'Reserves' program, when it was free to play up to a certain level. I had fun with it, but a lot of times the maps would be empty and gameplay consisted of flying from one point to the next, capturing with zero resistance. I guess its heyday had come and gone.
-World of Tanks. I beta tested and had fun, but the final game is just too grind-heavy for me to enjoy it. Getting blown up by enemies I can't even scratch and knowing it's another hundred fifteen-minute matches before I can even equal them is frustrating.
-Guild Wars. Tried briefly- PvE wasn't my thing, PvP required all the expansions to be effective, and I simply got my ass handed to me over and over again before deciding it wasn't worth the time and effort.
Nowadays, the line between MMO and non-MMO is blurring. MMOs are increasingly going free-to-play with microtransactions, while non-MMOs are increasingly featuring persistent unlocks and progression, and I think there is some sort of convergence on the horizon.
As for what I'm looking forward to, Hawken and Mechwarrior Online. My big stompy robot quota has been unfilled the last few years.
Matthew on 3/5/2012 at 15:55
Ultima Online - I came to it late and, well, I wasn't impressed.
World of Warcraft - more like World of Borecraft hurrrrr. Technically accomplished but I hardly played it and ended up haemorrhaging cash for over a year before I came to my senses and cancelled. The whole thing just didn't grab me at all.
City of Heroes - one of the first I tried; I dip in and out now and again and coming back to it with a more thorough understanding of MMOs has given me an increased affinity for it. Admittedly, I did the same thing with this as I did with WoW first time around, i.e. pay large amounts of cash for little playtime.
Star Wars Galaxies - in at the death almost literally; seemed interesting enough in my free trial but not worth paying for.
EVE Online - I tried to like it, I really did. I ended up logging in more to set up skills training than I did to play. I still owe some kind soul 500K ISK that he gifted me and I feel quite guilty about that.
Warhammer Online - I was in the pre-order beta and somewhere along the line realised I wasn't having fun at all, that with low populations the public quests were going to be pretty problematic and despite my youthful adoration of all things Games Workshop I just knew it was going to end up being a barely-played money-sink like WoW. I cancelled my pre-order and never looked back until a 'free weekend' deal, which revealed a reasonably improved game but still not one that I wanted to pay for.
Lord of the Rings Online - YES. Finally it all clicks, as I find a game that I like the story of (and I wasn't even much of a Tolkien fan before I started), like the lore behind and like the way it's angled more towards solo quest-play than grinding or massively grouping (though there's plenty of both if you wish). Even better, with a lifetime membership I never have to pay to play again and it's been more than worth the price time-spent-playing-wise. I've been playing for a little over three years and hope to keep playing right to the end, if only so I can finally stab those bastard Nazgul in the face when the One Ring is destroyed.
Star Trek Online - yes, I'm the one person who bought a lifetime sub for this. Oh well, it seemed quite good in beta (the space combat, anyway).
What I'm looking forward to:
- I kinda want to try SW:TOR but don't expect great things of it so I'm still on the fence.
- Guild Wars II is a possibility, I've heard great things from my LotRO kinmates about GWI so it's certainly on the radar.
- The inevitable mounted combat update to LotRO that will come with the 'Riders of Rohan' expansion later this year could be awesome if they get it right.
- One or more of Equestria Online / Legends of Equestria / MLP Online will hopefully get released this year or next, so I can get my daily interactive pony porn fix with proper bronies.
EDIT: oh crap yes, how did I forget Mechwarrior Online and Mechwarrior Tactics Online?
Edit edit: arrrgh, how did I forget The Secret World? I really like the sound of this one so far.
Al_B on 3/5/2012 at 17:28
EVE Online is probably the MMO that I played the most, for about 3-4 years or so although I've not played it seriously for a few years. I never found the PvP to be a huge problem as long as you took a few reasonable precautions. Just make sure you're not an attractive target, be part of an active corp, don't fly what you can't afford to lose and if you're in a war or low security system then keep an eye on local pilots. Most of my most memorable experiences were being part of alliances in 0.0 space - either extremely safe due to the number of people keeping watch or very dangerous because you're at war. I'd love to get back into it again but I know just how much of a time sink it can be.
CoH was fun for a bit but ultimately I found it just too shallow to maintain interest longer term. I got bored with WoW almost instantly and never played it more than one or two play sessions.
The only other MMO that I've played more than a short time was Astro Empires. Browser based and very primitive in comparison to something such as EVE it still captured some of the teamwork and strategic gameplay. Ultimately it became just too much of a chore and there was just too much of an accelerating differential between established players and newer members.
Koki on 3/5/2012 at 17:35
Quote Posted by Al_B
Just make sure you're not an attractive target, be part of an active corp, don't fly what you can't afford to lose and if you're in a war or low security system then keep an eye on local pilots.
That sounds pretty limiting in what is supposed to be a total freedom game.
