Help me pick an MMOFollow

At the risk of shooting myself in the foot, I will now leave the fate of my new computer in the hands of the Zamites. I have a list of MMOs that I want to get into, but I will only have time for one when I get back to Americaland.

I voted for 14.
If you have not played WoW, it is fun (until 14 comes out).



Allods is pretty good for being free. I did play some of this, but went back to WoW when I made some money.

FEZ was kind of lame. 3 classes (Warrior, Rogue, Mage) each can do 2 jobs (Tank/DPS, Rogue/Archer, DMG/Heal) if "speced" that way. Each class is stronger over another class. I played for a week or so, was not for me.

I voted for other because you didn't list WoW.

World of Warcrack.

I know it's mainstream, being the main stream and all, but it's also highly entertaining. Can't really comment on any of the others, except EVE Online. I actually enjoyed my last subscription, but had to cancel it due to lack of free time. My finances are also pretty much locked up in food right now.

Never really tried the Final Fantasy games, being a PC kid and all, I just never grew up with them the same way.

Aion, well, it was a total disaster for me. I could install the game and log on, but then I'd proceed to rubberband all over the place. Checked the interweb for info and someone told me to ping the server, so I did, and I got back 8,000,000 ms latency. Yeah. Apparently they don't work all too well with some carriers, so a lot of people are just fubar'd. Worst $50 I ever spent.

Having played World of Warcraft since its birth, I'm pretty biased, but it's easy to learn and provides some relatively instant gratification, opposite some MMOs that either leave you hanging for a climax that never comes, or simply ****-block you before you even log in.

You've played Warcraft before, though, haven't you?

With the cross realm dungeon finder tool, it has never been easier to get instance groups. May still be a little sparse in the leveling zones, but at least you'll have people to instance with.

Well, that's any MMO, really. It was especially fun in WAR and FFXI, but that's because the games promoted teamwork a bit more than say, AoC.

Oh you can Q w/ more people.

Doug if you plan to play a MMO w/ friends, WoW and instances running would be a good idea.
You all just need to get to lv15 before you can use the tool. If one is a tank, one a healer..getting groups will be almost instant.

All one has to do is start a group, then place the group in Queue. A confirm box shows up on other's screen asking if they are tank/heals/dps (click what roles one can be).

You can run Random or you can specifically (sp?) pick what dungeon you want to run. If you do the Random way, at the end of the final boss everyone who did Random Q will get a gift bag, and inside is sometimes a good blue item. Helps keep you geared as you lvl (and makes for easy money, as after about 5 runs the item begins to repeat).

Well, I picked the ones I did for the poll because they each had something I liked.

1) I'm a graphics *****. Sue me.
2) I like a game that's hard. Not because it makes me feel special, but because I like the challenge.
3) I like working in groups. If I want to solo I'll play something offline.
4) It needs to be time consuming. This seems strange to you guys, but the fact that things took so long in FFXI is what caused a lot of my favorite experiences in my time playing MMOs. Fun happens most when you aren't trying. At least, in my experience.

The graphics in LOTRO is somewhat comparable to the graphics in Wrath of the Lich King. World of Warcraft builds on a RTS game and was created to give you the sense of being in the RTS games you played, except from a more 3D third-person view. And yes, the graphics are somewhat outdated compared to Age of Conan or Aion, but turn everything up to max and your computer will go nuts, unless it's a hefty one.

The "cartoon" graphics (turning off Full-Screen Glow, or w/e it's called helps) may seem mediocre compared to the more realistic touch in LOTRO, but it's also what enables you to literally run from one end of the map to the other without loading screens. With new detailed shadows, major increase in drawing distance and the upcoming semi-upgrade to especially water graphics, it's not all that bad.

Maybe LOTRO had a graphics upgrade as well, because last time I played it (a year ago or so) it looked like this.

Last time I played WoW, it looked like this.

Edit: Not really a fair comparison. One is an open scenery picture while the other is inside a town. Also, I run WoW at almost max settings and I'm guessing the LOTRO screenshot wasn't taken at max video quality. I'll post an open scenery screenshot once I log in.

Edit2: View over the eastern parts of Dragonblight and Naxxramas hovering over the fields below. The white sort of fog is... well, fog. Apparently the weather was foggy there. Also, I had to compress the image somewhat as I'm running the game in 1440 x 900, hence the weird glitch in the foggy area on the left side of the screenshot.

This one might be better.

Edited, Apr 26th 2010 9:26pm by Mazra

So LOTRO runs DX10 now?

*pondering stance*

Might have to check it out.

Does it look more like this now?

Edit: Wrote the post after your edit. Looks much better than what I remember.

Edited, Apr 26th 2010 9:37pm by Mazra

Yes LoTRO runs in DX10, with rumor of a upgrade this year for DX11 if your PC can handle it. I have played both games within the last 6 months and LoTRO as far as realism graphic wise, runs circles around WoW. Difference is you can run WoW on a decent PC with max settings with a decent frame rate, while LoTRO on max takes a much greater PC for smooth results. Also screen shots don't do LoTRO justice since it doesn't show off the dynamic lighting, DX10 shadows, and the DX10 water effects the same way seeing it "live" does. There use to be a few YouTube vids that showed em, but they even pale in comparison.

Not 100% sure Haven't been on in 3-4 weeks myself, though just patched the client today so I can maybe play tonight and try the 3rd anniversary events out. That and finally get my spring festival mounts since the finally fixed the bug with the vendor... (no more 20silver horses )

One reason I'm glad I got the lifetime account, I can walk away for a month or two and don't feel guilty about not playing something I'm paying for like most other MMO's I've dabbled in over the years... I usually just watch the forums for new updates, pop in for a week or two to play the new content, then move on for a while til the next one. Really wish end game would get fleshed out some more, don't wanna raid 7 nights a week, but would like a few more "heroic" type 5 man instances, or even the 3 man like Loth had so we had a greater variety of stuff to do when logging in...