EvaUnit02 on 27/10/2008 at 14:02
I spent my day playing the Phantasy Star Universe trial on 360. Why? I saw that the PC version was on sale for $10NZD and was curious. Also because Phantasy Star IV for Mega Drive remains one of my favourite JRPGs to this day, I wanted to see how the series has fared since then.
I've come to the conclusion that this game really sucks.
It's a simplistic dungeon crawling MMO, all you do is grind and grind some more. It might've been a better experience if there were sweet loot drops like with Diablo, but there aren't any - just heal and craft items. You just keep grinding the same dungeon until you're at a high lenough level to tackle the next one or have enough dough to afford better gear from the shops. Alternatively you can party with higher level players and piggyback XP off of the them, which is shared by the looks of it.
As to be expected from a Xbox Live game, the community is horrible. I mostly encountered high-pitched young adolescent boys. In one Instance, one of these dipshits kept singing some horrid song. I was too busy grinding to get the opportunity to mute the little fucker.
There's no voice chat in the lobby, but the text spam is just as obnoxious. Illiterate gay/bi guys asking for cock pictures; wannabe gangsters declaring their turf; emo's posting their horrid poetry; gold beggars... argh.
Seriously, who finds this shit fun? Are all Asian-developed MMO's as rubbish as this one?
van HellSing on 27/10/2008 at 14:47
All MMOs are rubbish.
Ostriig on 27/10/2008 at 14:49
I toyed for a bit with Rappelz a while back, one of those "free" MMOs, and just a tad with Lineage II (literally, just two one hour sessions), the original Rappelz was enthusiastically being a clone of. As you can tell, my experience is far from making me an authority on this sort of shit, but I can honestly say I wasn't impressed. Not in a positive way, at any rate.
june gloom on 27/10/2008 at 14:56
I find MMOs to be singularly horrid (and a big reason why PC gaming is going down the shitter) but AFiH seems to like FFXI, and I guess Ill take her word for it as she's played a lot of MMOs over the years.
Gambit on 27/10/2008 at 15:11
MMO´s are not evil by nature...
But the grind gameplay and the irritating teenager communities that follow it are severely damaging the genre.
It can be much more than grinding, the full potencial of MMO gameplay isn´t tapped yet.
Ps: I´m looking for World of Darkness online. Sadly it will e very costly to afford it every month.
thief0 on 27/10/2008 at 15:18
Ok, who exactly is AFiH? people have refered to her in a couple of threads.
Matthew on 27/10/2008 at 15:29
A Flower in Hell.
Xenith on 27/10/2008 at 16:58
It's the lack of quests that bothers me mostly; well that and the fact that that lack of quests goes together with the grind. I don't mind killing monsters, but at least give me a reason to do so. Making an uninteresting story just for the heck of it and telling the player that he needs to kill 100 poisonous cats to get some reward is just stupid; especially when you do that 10 times in a row.
Of course there has to be some other goal to reach for when your character actually gets to some high level. Of course there's almost nothing to do because the guys making the mmos think like this:
create char -> kill monsters -> get items -> kill other players for some self esteem -> fun!!!
:erg:
Of course I still play from time to time... hoping for an mmo that will take throne and will actually be more than just pvp...
gunsmoke on 27/10/2008 at 17:07
I have played 2 MMO's. Never paid for one though. First was a 10-day trial of WoW. I played for 3 hours, and uninstalled it. Kinda weird. Thought it would have been more fun if it had been developed as a single-player RPG.
The second was one that was originally a fee-based game, but turned free last year. I can't remember the name. It was downloaded off of fileplanet. I just did a search...Shadowbane. It was ok. I went around for 4-5 days (3-4 hours a day) alone exploring every nook and cranny of the landscape, leveling up, and collecting loot. I was having a great time. That time, I actually sought out companionship and accepted offers to hang out or form a party. Though, once again thought it would have been a lot better as a single-player RPG. :(
WingedKagouti on 27/10/2008 at 17:12
Quote Posted by Gambit
the irritating teenager communities that follow it are severely damaging the genre.
<snip>
Ps: I´m looking for World of Darkness online. Sadly it will e very costly to afford it every month.
Hopefully not to avoid those communities...
WoD is distilled teen angst. Expect the chat to be filled with horrible rambling goth "poetry" about how some recluse teen thinks the world is out to get him (or her) and the massive pain suffered.
