Seeking New MMOFollow

When WoW went public beta all those years ago, my two friends and I jumped at it just because I was working on a Mac as my main computer and it was the only good choice we could all play. Now I've brought my old Dell laptop back to life for career retraining and Blizzard continues to **** us off. So we're looking for a new MMO. Our personalities include a pilot/old-school-DnD player, a lawyer, and a chemist/first-person-shooter player.

What's the latest good games to try for adult gamers?

That's not a lot of info to go off of, really.

Are you looking for PvP, do you enjoy instanced content or more open worlds? Do you want a game that will make it easy to assist each other through levels (does one more more then the rest) or are you all at the same level of available playing time? Are you looking for crafting or do you despise it?

Why is Blizzard pissing you off?

Just off of what you say I'd recommend trying EQ2, Guild Wars, Planetside, LotRO, UO, or Vanguard (don't cringe...they've got an interesting game with wide open worlds).

If you're looking for some hard core PvP I'd try EQ2's PvP servers, DAoC Classic Servers, or Age of Conan (I personally haven't tried it but the industry is on a band wagon, so why not).

More details on what you're looking for and why WoW isn't for you would be much more helpful.

I thought it sucked in every way imaginable.

There's a number of things we don't like about WoW as it is (though at least one person told me it was server specific... he moved servers and while he still doesn't play near as much as he use to he likes it better). Top of the list includes the following: We don't like how it's so competitive you can't get into a raid group without raid experience. Have enough of that with the employment line. We don't like the atmosphere of so-called "RP servers" where Blizz enforces nothing even with the huge numbers of complaints. After all, there's a reason we chose an RP server and it wasn't to put up with the same RP-hating idiots that frequent them.

So what are we looking for? Fun. Friendly atmosphere. Prefer RP. My wife's a little slow on controls, so something simple would be nice. Two of us are into the classic comics, so we've been considering CoH/V as well. Really, we're just looking for fun we can do together without the rude behavior we're currently getting from WoW and more respect as customers than we're getting from Blizz.

Try FFXI. You have enough people to basically static through the levels.

It is, to the extent of my small spectrum of knowledge, the best MMORPG out there, that can actually play on computers without towers yelling in tongue. It has a really fun party dynamic, has a good challenge and grind, a really good "customizable" job system, and has stuff to do at any job level.

Edited, Jun 8th 2008 10:59pm by Whoads

Trying out the FF Online for the 30 day trial. So far the one thing I hate about it is the interface. I can stand the having to go searching high and low for quests and getting lost everywhere. It wouldn't be Final Fantasy if I didn't. But the interface. Eesh. So far I like everything else about it. Not entirely sure my wife or friend will feel the same way. Anything that's more challenging and less just-plain-rude is okay in my book.

Also talked with a local Gamestop about what I'm looking for and what's been extended to me. Here's their take:

City of Heroes is very 2 dimensional. You create a character and for the length of time you play it you... remain that character. There's no "armor" (I assume they mean no equipment upgrades). And the stories really are just "typical comic book stories". So there's really no depth. And the economy is horrible due to the designers not thinking about the economy before releasing the game.

Lord of the Rings is "WoW without the PvP". That's their description. They didn't even have anything to add to it.

Final Fantasy's main problem is that unlike WoW it's grinding and grinding away on levels but once you finish leveling there "really isn't much left". No end game. Also there's "dealing with the 80% of the population that doesn't speak English since most of the population is Japanese".

I couldn't remember Vangaurd and they suggested that I was thinking of EVE, which they gave a two thumbs down all around. "If you weren't in at the beginning, it's just a gank-fest that takes too long to develop. One knows several friends of his that are on both WoW and EVE and use WoW as a diversion while they're watching their EVE character to keep them from getting ganked while keeping themselves from getting bored.

So at this point, still shopping around. No longer as interested in City of Heroes as I use to be. No dreams of Marvel Comics Past :-D

This entire paragraph is a pack of lies. Yes, it takes longer to get to the level cap than it does in WoW, but that's because getting to the level cap in WoW is ridiculously easy. If you know what your doing you can take a new job to seventy-five in FFXI in about two months, but this is after you've been around awhile. Your first seventy-five will probably take six months to a year.

But the thing about leveling up in FFXI is that there are always things to do other than leveling. It's not all about the rush to level cap and then endgame like it is in WoW. There are many things to do before you actually get to seventy five. There are tons of quests, many of which have interesting stories. There are enough missions that you could do nothing but missions for a good six months, and for many of them you do not need to be at level seventy five to do. There is also the Artifact Armor quests which you can start at level fifty, which will net a you pretty decent or a fairly useless set of armor, depending on job. There are tons of other things that I could mention but I'll leave that for another time.

Now the claim that there is no end game is just ridiculous. FFXI has so many end game activities that unless you do nothing but play FFXI you couldn't possibly manage to do them all at the same time. Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, Nyzal Isle, Einherjar, Sky gods, land kings, Sea Gods, and to a lesser extent Assault and a new Notorious Monster system just added a couple days ago, are just the one's that I can think of off the top of my head. Now I'm sure that since you haven't actually played the game yet that most of those names mean nothing to you, but I can assure you that there is a very active and extensive set of endgame activities to chose from.

As to most of the population being Japanese, I'm not even sure where this one came from. Yes, there is a large portion of Japanese people that play the game, but there is an equally large portion of English speakers that play the game as well. It really depends on what time you play as to which group you'll run into the most, but there is always a mixture. There are also large numbers of Spanish, French, and German players. Basically if you play during the hours of three PM and two to three AM Eastern, you won't have any issues finding people that speak English as their primary language.

Also, FFXI has what is probably the friendliest people you could ever meet in a game. It pretty much has to since the game is so focused on teamwork to get things done. You will need other people's help to get things done, this fosters a very friendly atmosphere. Yes, there are ********, those can be found everywhere, but they tend to get shunned. All we ask is that you make a legitimate effort to help yourself before you ask for help. This can mean many things. In the early levels of the game all it really means is a willingness to listen and to learn. Later on it means taking the time to know what it is you want to do, where you have to go to do it, and what your going to need to get it done.

Edited, Jun 13th 2008 4:42am by TurinAlexander

Try out the Everquest II trial, it's a fun game with good graphics, big world, lots and lots of quests, good lore, still a fair amount of players including in the beginner's areas although the first ten levels or so are not group oriented, especially if there's two of you.

It is fairly fast, especially compared to FFXI or EQ, there are also lousy players there but haven't really been bothered by them that often during the years.

Currently playing the FFXI trial still. Aside from getting use to the interface and finding the gil a little harder to come by than I'd expected, it's not bad at all. The people have all, so far, been friendly, quite a few have done at least a tiny bit of RP with their characters, and, of course, you have the Final Fantasy graphics and action. Sure it's not the "top of the line" graphics and the sound effects will take you back to Final Fantasy 7, but I like it. Not entirely sure if my wife or friend will like having to keep using Allak and the like to keep up with crafting :-D, but you'd have that in Everquest, too, and when I explained that to them back in WoW public beta they thought it was a great idea.

City of Heroes I can't find a code for. Tried several websites, but nobody has active trial codes. Ah well.

And I know LotR has a trial. Haven't downloaded it yet.

Any and all suggestions always welcome. Not much else to do since I'm unemployed :-D. I'm the crash test dummy of us three :-D

My only worry about EQ2 is it just seems like very high requirements for hardware compared to what I have available. Guess I'll at least try the trial on my old Dell and maybe my wife's spare workstation and see if it will run. After all, all the reviews I've read have loved it so far as I've seen.

Amen.

Just a quick update.

Out of morbid curiosity, having heard not much about it and being grounded from flight training while waiting out thunderstorms, I tried VENDETTA. After all, my main computer is a Mac and is much more powerful than the old Dell laptop. (Both are about 2 years apart in age as well, but the Mac was built to be a biology research computer.) And I'm hooked. I can see why most people I've met probably wouldn't like it, but I love piloting through space.

What's good?

If you like flying with joystick, rudder pedals, all that, you'll love it. If you love how the new version of Battlestar Galactica takes into account the use of engines, thrusters, and the wild maneuverings possible in space, you'll love it. If you like flier shooters in general, you'll likely love it. The economy is just as much part of the game as anything else.

What's bad?

There's nothing much more than that. You mine. You trade. You battle. And that's it. You can make your own ships for all occasions, there's a system of factions and "licenses" to obtain more ships and parts... but that's it. There's a base storyline that isn't very deep, there's a wide balance of the RPers and the dumbest of the dumb... but that's it.

Next up: Going to try EQ2 on the old Dell.

Oh yeah.... and I actually paid for a month of Vendetta. What can I say? I'm a pilot.