are any of the new MMOs commin out gonna be worth it?

[Jzeidenb]

Im trying to do anything i can to stay away from wow. i played it a long ass time, as well as ffxi, liked both but am sick of both now, but i love mmo's

tabula rasa and other mmo's seem on the way shortly. anyone think these games will be any good?


i also never played EQ2, maybe i should try that.

 

[tranceport]

if you don't play mmo's for a while... you won't want to play them anymore.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm a big EQ2 fan myself, the amount of content they've added and are continuing to add is staggering. EQ2 has probably had more content added to it since release than any other MMO, save for EQ1.

The big titles that people are waiting for right now in the MMO world are Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, and Tabula Rasa. There's also Darkfall Online and a few other smaller titles.

Age of Conan bills itself at the first Mature rated MMO. Thats a strength and a weakness. For me, the reason I won't buy it is that it's a PvP oriented game. Therefore I can say with 100% certainty that it will be overrun by young children, and adults that flunked out of high school.

Warhammer Online, I'm not too familiar with myself. I was never able to really get into the Warhammer setting, though I'm sure others here will be able to hook you up with plenty of information in that regard. There was a thread about it recently with comments about their closed beta, specifically comparing its UI ti a complete knockoff of WoW. But, I've never played it, nor have a seen a screen shot, so I can't say regardless.

I personally lost all interest in Tabula Rasa once they retooled the game into more of an MMOFPS than an RPG. But that may be your thing. Richard Garriot should focus his efforts making a good single player RPG that will set the standard for the next 10 years of RPGs.

MMOs out right now that I wouldn't touch are Star Wars Galaxies, Matrix Online, Vanguard, World of Warcraft, and any free MMOs, such as Silk Road Online. You're not going to have much run in the kiddie/spammer/farmer overrun grindfest that is a free MMO.

 

[destrekor]

I'm in the beta right now for Tabula Rasa due to pre-ordering the game, and I enjoy it. It's not as much of an MMOFPS as people thing to think, since aiming is completely unnecessary. Take the idea of Matrix Online, and its close to what Tabula Rasa is doing with guns, except it uses a cover system, and crouching helps too, but virtual dice rolls are still used to determine damage and whether the hit lands or not, with probability changing based on certain circumstances, such as if you have taken cover, have fired from behind cover without coming out of cover (crouched but standing up to shoot from behind cover, crouching in the middle of an open area will land better accuracy and potentially more damage, but your open to all sorts of fire still), and it also uses random abilities that can be thought of as 'spells'. IMHO, it's a great mix that should breathe life into the genre, as I personally think games like Warcraft are stale since they offer little improvement over the classic formula first made famous in games like EverQuest. Sure, some things are different and handled better, but the idea remains the same.
Plus, I really dig the story of Tabula Rasa.

 

[KMFJD]

Looking forward to Warhammer and AoC, mainly because of the PVP, but then again i must be a child or an adult that has never graduated high school.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Age of Conan bills itself at the first Mature rated MMO. Thats a strength and a weakness. For me, the reason I won't buy it is that it's a PvP oriented game. Therefore I can say with 100% certainty that it will be overrun by young children, and adults that flunked out of high school.

EVE Online is PVP and probably has one of the highest maturaty levels compared to any online game and is full of professionals who are quite the successful men and women of the world.

Try again if you want to insult PVPers. I could sit and call you carebear for wanting to play PVE content in EQ2 all day long but that wouldn't profit my intelligence. So why does it profit you to reduce PVP MMO gamers to kiddies and adults who don't have high school educations?

Not to mention the developers themselves build the game to their liking... and they aren't dropouts either are they? Spare us your enlightened idea of the internet gamers.

 

[Skott]

WAR (Warhammer:Age of Reckoning) and AoC (Age of Conan) are currently slated for a March 2008 release. Not sure about the others. I'm really warming up to WAR although I wouldnt mind giving AoC a try as well. Till then I'm sticking with DAoC and all the stand alone PC titles I need to catch up on between now and Q1 2008. More games than I have free time atm.

 

[Ichigo]

Originally posted by: hooflung

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Age of Conan bills itself at the first Mature rated MMO. Thats a strength and a weakness. For me, the reason I won't buy it is that it's a PvP oriented game. Therefore I can say with 100% certainty that it will be overrun by young children, and adults that flunked out of high school.

EVE Online is PVP and probably has one of the highest maturaty levels compared to any online game and is full of professionals who are quite the successful men and women of the world.

Try again if you want to insult PVPers. I could sit and call you carebear for wanting to play PVE content in EQ2 all day long but that wouldn't profit my intelligence. So why does it profit you to reduce PVP MMO gamers to kiddies and adults who don't have high school educations?

Not to mention the developers themselves build the game to their liking... and they aren't dropouts either are they? Spare us your enlightened idea of the internet gamers.

Clearly he doesn't play Eve Online and commented based on his experience with MMORPG's that he has played. Given that, it's not wholly unreasonable for him to come to his, if untrue, conclusion. You're not impressing anyone by acting like an elitist snob.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I'm addicted to Lunia right now. Its a free korean MMORPG *gasp!!! Thing is, this game is FUN! There is no auto attack. Its action based 2D/3D game, whrre you use button combos to attack. It has lots of Engrish, but the battle system is fun, and mission oriented gameplay makes it not dull at all.

 

[Molondo]

Any idea on huxley?

 

[Wheelock]

Let's get this thread back on track.

Originally posted by: Jzeidenb
tabula rasa and other mmo's seem on the way shortly. anyone think these games will be any good?

Warhammer Online - It seems to have a solid following, but I seriously doubt it'll ever reach WoW levels of popularity (this is not necessarily a problem). Their PvP gameplay is the make-or-break question, and I have no idea whether it'll work out. I really hope it does. By being the inspiration for Warcraft, WAR might also be unfairly labeled as a copycat product.

Age of Conan - Best graphics in an MMORPG? It looks great. The combat system is new, too. I just have a bad feeling about this one, though. It seems too dark for mass-appeal, and stuff like the crafting/merchant system isn't as elaborate as some of the mechanisms in SWG or EVE Online, which older gamers (read: the kind of gamers who buy into the dark fantasy setting in the first place) seem to enjoy.

 

[manimal]

I am crossing my fingers and my eyes in hopes that warhammer online isnt a Wow clone. Some of the stuff Ive seen looks pretty good, but MAN I wish it was the warhammer 40k universe. Oh well, may as well kill some more orcs......and more orcs.....and an occasional bunny that kill a party of 18.

 

[Jschmuck2]

Originally posted by: Wheelock
Let's get this thread back on track.

Originally posted by: Jzeidenb
tabula rasa and other mmo's seem on the way shortly. anyone think these games will be any good?

Warhammer Online - It seems to have a solid following, but I seriously doubt it'll ever reach WoW levels of popularity (this is not necessarily a problem). Their PvP gameplay is the make-or-break question, and I have no idea whether it'll work out. I really hope it does. By being the inspiration for Warcraft, WAR might also be unfairly labeled as a copycat product.

Age of Conan - Best graphics in an MMORPG? It looks great. The combat system is new, too. I just have a bad feeling about this one, though. It seems too dark for mass-appeal, and stuff like the crafting/merchant system isn't as elaborate as some of the mechanisms in SWG or EVE Online, which older gamers (read: the kind of gamers who buy into the dark fantasy setting in the first place) seem to enjoy.

You guys never played DAoC, did you?

 

[jjyiz28]

city of villains/city of heroes. this game came out like a month before WoW, and they keep up with updates. now it is at issue #10. very easy to get groups, more PvE than PvP, but their is zones where you can PvP.

 

[coloumb]

Originally posted by: tranceport
if you don't play mmo's for a while... you won't want to play them anymore.

/agree to a certain point. I do get the craving to re-feed my MMO addiction every now and then [luckily for me they offer "please come back and try us for the weekend, 21 days, etc trial periods].

To the OP - there really isn't anyway to indicate if an MMO will feed your need unless YOU actually try it. You're going to have to either find a friend who is playing the MMO or just buy and try it for a month to see if you like it or not.

As with you - I'm keeping a close eye on Tabula Rasa as well. I've also grown tired of the "fantasy" style MMO grind-fests...

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Jschmuck2

Originally posted by: Wheelock
Let's get this thread back on track.

Originally posted by: Jzeidenb
tabula rasa and other mmo's seem on the way shortly. anyone think these games will be any good?

Warhammer Online - It seems to have a solid following, but I seriously doubt it'll ever reach WoW levels of popularity (this is not necessarily a problem). Their PvP gameplay is the make-or-break question, and I have no idea whether it'll work out. I really hope it does. By being the inspiration for Warcraft, WAR might also be unfairly labeled as a copycat product.

Age of Conan - Best graphics in an MMORPG? It looks great. The combat system is new, too. I just have a bad feeling about this one, though. It seems too dark for mass-appeal, and stuff like the crafting/merchant system isn't as elaborate as some of the mechanisms in SWG or EVE Online, which older gamers (read: the kind of gamers who buy into the dark fantasy setting in the first place) seem to enjoy.

You guys never played DAoC, did you?

i did. all anyone ever wanted was a lvl 50 battleground, and they never put one in. they deleted the thing that was closest to it (they had to because the hibs were screwed as long as the big armies were always in emain). and then they replaced it with boring ass keep siege combat that was even lower on the RPs than the prior keep sieges (remarkably). at that point i pretty much stopped playing. it also didn't help that my guilds kept breaking up. ugh.




i'm willing to give mythic another shot, because i honestly like pvp and rvr type combat more than pve boringness. maybe they've figured out what that new frontiers sucked donkey dick. hopefully the game will be polished due to all the experience with daoc. (polish is really what sets wow apart, because everything else is just rehashed from elsewhere).





tabula rasa... there is a game i first heard of so long ago i've forgotten that garriot was working on it. if he can change the genre again it'll be awesome.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Ichigo

Originally posted by: hooflung

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Age of Conan bills itself at the first Mature rated MMO. Thats a strength and a weakness. For me, the reason I won't buy it is that it's a PvP oriented game. Therefore I can say with 100% certainty that it will be overrun by young children, and adults that flunked out of high school.

EVE Online is PVP and probably has one of the highest maturaty levels compared to any online game and is full of professionals who are quite the successful men and women of the world.

Try again if you want to insult PVPers. I could sit and call you carebear for wanting to play PVE content in EQ2 all day long but that wouldn't profit my intelligence. So why does it profit you to reduce PVP MMO gamers to kiddies and adults who don't have high school educations?

Not to mention the developers themselves build the game to their liking... and they aren't dropouts either are they? Spare us your enlightened idea of the internet gamers.

Clearly he doesn't play Eve Online and commented based on his experience with MMORPG's that he has played. Given that, it's not wholly unreasonable for him to come to his, if untrue, conclusion. You're not impressing anyone by acting like an elitist snob.

I did play Eve Online, albeit briefly. I will admit that Eve's maturity level was higher than most PvP oriented games, I just couldn't get into the game. 1 PvP game with mature players is not enough to take the 'shit' light away from pretty much every other PvP oriented MMO.

Oh, by the way, in calling me an elitist snob, you yourselves also acted like elitist snobs.

 

[Miklebud]

Originally posted by: Molondo
Any idea on huxley?

I'm liking what I see from that game!! I hear there's a Beta to be released soon?

 

[bennylong]

I'm waiting to see how AoC and Warhammer turns out. I'm not getting my hopes up after the crap that Vanguard turned out to be.

I'm having fun playing LOTRO, but I had very low expectation for that game.

 

[imported_sushicide]

Huxley beta has been delayed too many times, first it was March 07, then June, now Sept 13th...but I don't see that happenin'

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
city of villains/city of heroes. this game came out like a month before WoW, and they keep up with updates. now it is at issue #10. very easy to get groups, more PvE than PvP, but their is zones where you can PvP.

Uh, City of Heroes launched in April 2004... WoW launched in November of 2004. City of Villains launched in October 2005.

I play CoX to this day (CoH/CoV), and it is far more fun than most any other I've played. WoW was engrossing until you've done everything PvE, then it just sucked.

Playing Tabula Rasa right now in the beta, and I am refreshed as to how different it is, yet still the same. The FPS elements are nice. And despite what a previous posted said, YES - you DO have to actually aim (It's sticky aim, so if you're "close" you'll hit, but if you're not even in the same timezone you won't!).

I'm looking forward to Warhammer Online, though without any inclination of zealousness. It will be a WoW clone with DAoC's "RvR" (canned PvP). I've never been a PvP player, so that's something that ISN'T an incentive for me at least. At least it does keep PvP and PvE for the most part separate.

 

[yuppiejr]

As much as people trash on WoW, there has to be something going right to keep 9 million people pumping $15 a month into the machine. Having started my MMO days in UO, then EQ1, DAoC, EQ2 and just recently WoW after a long hiatus from the scene I have to say it's by far the best one I've played. As my lifestyle has changed (single, apartment dwelling gamer to married w/ a new baby & mortgage) so has my time and tolerance for time sinks when and if I decide to play a MMORPG versus the typical single player fare that I've stuck with for the most part. Being able to jump into WoW for 30-90 minutes at a shot and make real progress rather than grinding to get 1/3 of an EXP bubble or 2 points in a tradeskill like EQ2 appeals to my sense of fun that is the whole reason I'm playing the game. I'd rather sit in a hellish pit of old people and nickel slot machines at the local tribal casinos than try to build a f-ing chair and it's 19 subcomponents in EQ2 with my free time no matter how pretty the graphics engine is.

The other appeal of WoW versus other MMO's is the relative ease of solo play all the way into the 70's and beyond as new content is released. I'd rather see players get to the endgame levels with their characters more quickly and let individual skill in PvP or raid situations separate the good players from the bad rather than a arbitrary high level of difficulty imposed on the gamer that forces huge time commitments just to reach the endgame content that keeps the casual players away. The beauty of WoW isn't any particular innovation over other MMORPG's... it's that they actually listened to the average gamer and made the game fun and playable while taking the best ideas that came before them and implementing them in a stable and playable way. Hopefully the new games will learn from this and push the same concept.

WoW also avoided the "one trick pony" single concept type pitfalls that a lot of new MMO's tend to sell themselves on. We'll have to see how the new breed rises to the challenge, I think the failure of Vanguard is a signal to the industry that the old "throw a half finished game out there and force players to grind while we sort out the bugs and add in high level content" concept is not going to fly any more no matter who's name is attached. AoC, Warhammer and TR have a lot to prove - for now I think WoW still represents the best overall MMO game that's been released. Until the other players in the market move out of the old 95% grind/5% reward or "come grind in our licensed (LOtR, Galaxies, Matrix) world" they are going to have a hard time unseating the champ.

I will agree with the previous poster that Warhammer Online looks like the most likely to get it right, building on the core WoW simplicity / casual playability model while adding the RvR concept that DAoC brought to the genre. We'll see....

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: yuppiejr
Being able to jump into WoW for 30-90 minutes at a shot and make real progress rather than grinding to get 1/3 of an EXP bubble or 2 points in a tradeskill like EQ2 appeals to my sense of fun that is the whole reason I'm playing the game.

Exactly my point (of which in my opinion WoW sucks). After leveling 3 characters to 60 in an insanely short amount of time (6 days played for my quickest), I had nothing left to do. People said PvP... all that was is honor farming, doing the same thing day in and day out with no story. People said raid content... which wastes 75% of a playsession just waiting around for the raid to start, all for what? Some idiot player screaming "mine mine mine!!!" on an item he can't even use?

There is such a thing as TOO easy, which Warcraft definitely was.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: yuppiejr
As my lifestyle has changed (single, apartment dwelling gamer to married w/ a new baby & mortgage) so has my time and tolerance for time sinks.

WoW is quite a time-sink as well. The game simply caters to mostly single-player leveling.

Originally posted by: yuppiejr
The other appeal of WoW versus other MMO's is the relative ease of solo play all the way into the 70's and beyond as new content is released.

You touched on this a bit later, but the problem with this is it tends to foster a lot of bad players. I think what also helps this is the fact that players don't play for themselves anymore, they just have some high level come and help them. Hunters that leave growl on autocast, hunters that pull with their pet rather than letting the tank (in a situation where the tank can) pull. Characters not using their CC correctly or at all. This is because most PVE fights you end up in are 1v1 and aren't even hard. I found most of my fun in WoW from fighting these hard fights. I fight elites 1v1. I fought a mob designed for 5 players with only 2 players (both being controlled by myself)... I did end up dying, which was my fault (messed up on a heal ), but did considerably well for only having a tank and a healer. I've 3-manned 5-man bosses and when mentioning this to state the boss's difficulty, people tend to say, "But the log says 5!"

WoW also practically forces the player into a single-player mindset. There is almost no benefit to being in a group doing a quest! I play two characters at once, which can make some things easier for certain classes, but what does this mean? My experience is halved compared to normal and I have to spend twice as long when it comes to drop quests. Why would a sane person want to inflict this on themselves? Although I can say that sometimes it seems my warlock (in my paladin+warlock "group") has an easier time getting items for drop quests than my paladin (who loots the quest items first) did. The only advantage WoW presses for grouping is on kill quests when the mobs are scarce or elite quests. The thing is, people almost never group for kill quests in the same area, because they have that single-player mindset.

Originally posted by: yuppiejr
I'd rather see players get to the endgame levels with their characters more quickly and let individual skill in PvP or raid situations separate the good players from the bad rather than a arbitrary high level of difficulty imposed on the gamer that forces huge time commitments just to reach the endgame content that keeps the casual players away.

WoW does have an advantage that it allows the casual player to play and still see moderate success. But what I want to touch on is PVP in WoW. PVP in WoW has only become worse and worse over time. The removal of the honor ranking system was a good choice as it ended up becoming a beauracracy on some servers. I know Lightning's Blade practically had a queue for who would become Grand Marshal/High Warlord, and if you weren't on their team, it was not easy to get and literally took over your life. So now, the game has been turned into: AV is good for honor and AB, WSG and EotS are simply token grinds. The thing is, why would you even TRY in those latter 3 battlegrounds as Alliance (while PUGing). You literally lose 95% of the battles and if you try, it will take you about 7 hours to get 22 tokens (taking an average time of 20 minutes per AB fight) or you could spend 40 minutes getting 20 tokens if you just let the Horde win which could take 2 minutes per fight. This kind of ignores the waits in the beginning and such, but it's mathematically solid. Why should I spend time trying to win only to lose when I could get what I really want (tokens for pvp rewards) quicker?

Originally posted by: yuppiejr
WoW also avoided the "one trick pony" single concept type pitfalls that a lot of new MMO's tend to sell themselves on.

WoW is all about grinding everything... they just don't really admit that.

 

[yuppiejr]

Well, to some extent any character progression based RPG, single player or MMO, is going to involve some sort of levelling/questing mechanic to progress your character. The poster above you mentioned hitting WoW level 60 in 6 played days, which equates to 144 real life hours, and felt that was too fast. Mind you, most single player games clock something like 24-60 hours of gameplay to play through so we're talking at least double that amount of time if you are looking at the high end. If I recall in EQ1, you were lucky if you could crack level 50 in 50-60 played days, which equals 1200 to 1440 actual hours of play time and a ton of time wasted looking for groups since there were few truly soloable classes if you wanted to make significant progress.

If I am playing WoW a lot and average 1 hour per day plus an occasional weekend binge it would still take me the better part of 4 actual months to hit level 60 in WoW as a casual player. With the BC expansion and the additional 10 levels to worry about I'm expecting at least another 25-50 hours on top of that IF I've got some help and a good guide which is at least another month of real life time passing before I've got a level 70 guy. Add to that any time spent on raids, PvP, crafting, etc... and I'm easily looking at playing the game for a year to get a solid level 70 character with an alt or two who's fully experienced the gameplay options and properly geared. Technically, I suppose that could still be called grinding - though compared to EQ1/2 or most other MMO games WoW is insanely easy from a time spent:reward perspective - if you consider playing a game for 4 months to get a max level player "easy."

From a basic gameplay mechanics standpoint, WoW is no different than most other MMORPG's besides the comparatively ease in making SOLO progress. The reason casual players don't flock to games like EQ2, Vanguard, Matrix Online, etc.. is it's just too damn unrewarding for the actual time invested in playing, particularly solo. Some "hardcore" MMO game players seem to think WoW is too easy simply because they spend 8-10 hours a day for weeks on end and are willing to make real life sacrifices that a majority of casual players are not willing to. WoW doesn't have 9 million subscribers because it caters to the hardcore audience out there like most MMO games. It's the most financially successful MMO game ever produced by a huge margin because it's accessible to a broader audience of casual players who don't want to give up all ties in their real life to enjoy a game.