I didn't know it went free...
I played that game from original beta on for a few years, it was always a great game. If it has a free version now, I might have to check it out again, I haven't played it for like 2 years now.
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The Next Big MMO?
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I didn't know it went free...
I played that game from original beta on for a few years, it was always a great game. If it has a free version now, I might have to check it out again, I haven't played it for like 2 years now.
sinser
macrumors 6502a
not me... tried WoW two different times, and barely played a week each time... never could stand that game. I don't think CoH had much competition with WoW.... just too different of games.
I like CO and CoH... in some ways one is better than the other, but I still cannot decide which i like more.
ArthurWellsley
macrumors member
http://worldofplanes.ru/en/
and to the OP if your burnt out of WoW as an interim nice MMO to play try;
http://worldoftanks.eu/?sid=T=TWdJG...j-mAJuTFXycG1TQSzUNplLPqoL5Ly2mlMhLh4Intpfx7U
I found a pretty cool vid of some EVE Online end-game PVE.
It would be equivalent of the "WoW Raid". 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvNwJUlWgno
It would be equivalent of the "WoW Raid". 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvNwJUlWgno
I found it hard to follow although it was visually impressive. I also found This is Eve2 video which was impressive as I imagine my butt being kicked all over the universe. 😉
The "This is EVE2" video looks like it was made with the old graphics. Unless the producer turned it down because of weak computer or something.
But yeah, unless you've played a little the interface is a little complicated. Too many tables and windows and crosshairs. But once you get used to it, it's not as cluttered as some WoW add-on interfaces I've seen where your character is surrounding by like 100 boxes and bars. 🙂
Much of the "difficulty" ppl talk about in EVE is actually in the initial setup of your ships. It takes a lot of knowledge and memory to really understand the mechanics. And you add on top of that the fact that depending on the age of your character, you have "trained" certain time-based "trees", and then you can perform different roles...thus you have to learn that. Like Healer, Tank, DPS, Buff, etc. Which is really needed in end-game. But then you have different approaches like where each ship can heal sort of, while doing moderate DPS. And when grouped together, they all heal the aggroed and adjust DPS accordingly....which works on certain fights.
As for getting butt kicked, in reality, the vast majority of ppl hang out in the "safe part" of the universe. That's where most of the action happens, like commerce and "quests" and grinding. It's my guess that over 50% at least are not at War with another faction and 75% just hang out in the safe areas. Unfortunately, the "contested areas" (the biggest) are not really that crowded and in some areas, you can litterally stay there for hours and no one passes through. But the trick is, whatever loot you get needs to be brought back to the safe area where it's easiest to sell unless you joined a Faction and can use it in their territory. So since many ppl do this, some players try to intercept you at choke points to blow you up and take what doesn't get destroyed...disable your ship and randsom you...disable your ship and tell you to dump your cargo...or just blow you up because they think it's funny without carring about money. 😉
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I tried again recently and still could not get past the "scanning" part of the noobs tutorial, I am placing scanning globe things all over and trying to zero in on a location, I find the first location no problem but the second is impossible, I spent literally hours, I failed miserably. Everything else I tried was fine but I guess if I can't work out how to scan properly I am going to be useless at the full game?
To compare my recent MMO experience, the Rift trial was a total bust.
Although I participated in the original LOTRO beta (and dropped it for retail), I'm giving LOTRO (free) a second chance and while I'm in its early stages, it's not doing much for me.
As previously mentioned, I've updated my WoW client which is much improved in that you don't have to install 50 patches and established a free WoW account (free for first 20 levels) linked to my original WoW account. It's very enjoyable and reminiscent to run around the starter zones, especially the Night Elf zone (it's still incredibly atmospheric, just love it) but the starter zones have been somewhat gutted quest wise as you level rapidly. I'm not seeing myself going back to WoW on any kind of a serious basis.
As of right now, there is a possibility I'll jump into SWTOR retail and fiddle with it until Planetside 2 emerges next year. Even Planetside is a repeat for me.
Eve Online is a different sort of animal. The odds are slim I'll venture in. Most likely if I want PVP, it will be Planetside2.
Although I participated in the original LOTRO beta (and dropped it for retail), I'm giving LOTRO (free) a second chance and while I'm in its early stages, it's not doing much for me.
As previously mentioned, I've updated my WoW client which is much improved in that you don't have to install 50 patches and established a free WoW account (free for first 20 levels) linked to my original WoW account. It's very enjoyable and reminiscent to run around the starter zones, especially the Night Elf zone (it's still incredibly atmospheric, just love it) but the starter zones have been somewhat gutted quest wise as you level rapidly. I'm not seeing myself going back to WoW on any kind of a serious basis.
As of right now, there is a possibility I'll jump into SWTOR retail and fiddle with it until Planetside 2 emerges next year. Even Planetside is a repeat for me.
Eve Online is a different sort of animal. The odds are slim I'll venture in. Most likely if I want PVP, it will be Planetside2.
My first MMO was Guild Wars, and in a lot of ways I found it superior to WOW. I beat that one awhile ago and found the end game content lacking. What was good however was the expansions.... however I've been waiting for GW2 to be release for what seems like forever....
I played EVE for awhile and really liked it. Where EVE fell apart for me was the guild concept. I found it really difficult to find a guild that I was into, and the game isn't all that interesting when played solo. I like that they were trying to make it near 100% player generated missions/content, but that concept only works if you can manage to find the players who are willing to put in that sort of effort to play with.
The issue with WOW is that there's no real storyline to it. Maybe it makes sense to people who've been playing since Vanilla, but for someone like me who only started playing WOW earlier this year the plot is pretty much non-existent or really screwed up. Like, why as a Blood Elf do I have to complete a Forsaken quest arc to level up? Or why is half the world is in some sort of awkward Burning Crusade/Lich King story line when the Lich King was defeated and yet after a few months of playing there's been almost zero mention of Deathwing?
I liked the way Guild Wars handled instancing. With WOW your character exists in a world that never changes regardless of character actions, whereas Guild Wars has various parallel worlds that you progress through as you complete major plot items. It's nice because a major boss doesn't respawn 30 seconds after you defeat him... in your world he's now dead forever. It gives you a sense of accomplishment that WOW totally lacks.
With WOW I just keep grinding for the sake of grinding. I rarely read quest stories anymore because regardless of what I do it has no real effect on the world around me. I'm hoping that as I approach level 85 and can access some of the end game content that things will start to make more sense. At the moment it seems like a game world with a lot of potential with a story line that's currently broken.
Rant over...
I played EVE for awhile and really liked it. Where EVE fell apart for me was the guild concept. I found it really difficult to find a guild that I was into, and the game isn't all that interesting when played solo. I like that they were trying to make it near 100% player generated missions/content, but that concept only works if you can manage to find the players who are willing to put in that sort of effort to play with.
The issue with WOW is that there's no real storyline to it. Maybe it makes sense to people who've been playing since Vanilla, but for someone like me who only started playing WOW earlier this year the plot is pretty much non-existent or really screwed up. Like, why as a Blood Elf do I have to complete a Forsaken quest arc to level up? Or why is half the world is in some sort of awkward Burning Crusade/Lich King story line when the Lich King was defeated and yet after a few months of playing there's been almost zero mention of Deathwing?
I liked the way Guild Wars handled instancing. With WOW your character exists in a world that never changes regardless of character actions, whereas Guild Wars has various parallel worlds that you progress through as you complete major plot items. It's nice because a major boss doesn't respawn 30 seconds after you defeat him... in your world he's now dead forever. It gives you a sense of accomplishment that WOW totally lacks.
With WOW I just keep grinding for the sake of grinding. I rarely read quest stories anymore because regardless of what I do it has no real effect on the world around me. I'm hoping that as I approach level 85 and can access some of the end game content that things will start to make more sense. At the moment it seems like a game world with a lot of potential with a story line that's currently broken.
Rant over...
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Some interesting points in your post. It is a tradeoff. A static world where the same game experience is guaranteed for every player and you can fight a boss encounter multiple times or a dynamic changing world where boss encounters are one time only. It's complicated. You could see that if a dynamic world changed to an end state based on the most advanced players, that the new players would not the same chance to enjoy the content. And that if all the space is instanced, you'd be locked into experiencing the world with just your group versus a living breathing world with a community of players running about the countryside. 🙂
You may not realize it, but the appeal of WoW to hard core players are the end game raid instances, where it can take you months to figure out how to take down a boss. That is the advantage of an instanced space. However, it's not my thing, it's too much work and commitment to put into a game. I'd rather have more of a dynamic world, with casual fights, but could still include instanced boss encounters like Wow does (not the dynamic world, but the instanced spaces) for eash, moderate, and hardcore players. Wow even has instances that scale depending on the size of the group and difficulty level you desire. This is impressive.
I specifically disliked Guild Wars because all of the questing space was instanced. I like the ability to run into other players out in the world, which you could not in GWs. IMO, that is a hit on a realistic immersive world.
But what were you saying about a parallel world where when you killed the boss he was dead forever? Does that mean in GWs when you enter the instance which is the entire world or a section of the world, that if you had killed a boss, but went back to help a friend, the boss would still be dead? If I'm understanding your correctly, in essence you could only do a boss encounter once and only include players in your party who had not all ready defeated the boss?
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You're asking me to dig pretty far back in my memory, so I may not be 100% accurate in this.
What I mean by parallel worlds is that once you trigger certain plot events you now exist in a slightly different version of the world than other characters. An example of this is in Nightfall. Once the Nightfall event is triggered the entire world changes into one in perpetual night. So far as I can figure out you still exist in the same world as other toons, but in the world they see on their display it is still daytime while on your display it is one of perpetual night. It gives a sense of purpose as the nightfall is a punishment for your failure in an earlier quest.
To answer your other question, so far as I know you can't "go back" and help someone defeat a boss that you've already defeated. In your world that boss is dead and the plot has progressed, so you can only link up with characters that are on the same leg of the plot line you are on. In this regard the world isn't as open-ended as the world in WOW... but WOW achieves it's open-ended-ness by simply never changing regardless of what you do.
In a way it makes GW's gameplay more like the Death Knight starting plot. As you progress through the Scarlet Enclave plot line Havenshire is burned, the Scarlet Dawn is at first pushed back and then defeated, and although bosses do respawn within the instance once you progress onto the next leg of the plot those bosses disappear. I really liked the DK starting plot, but once it was completed I became just another Horde Blood Elf and was directed to the Outlands to go complete some clumsy quests where I'm not sure if the Alliance is my friend or enemy, the outcome of earlier quests have no bearing on later quests and I'm fighting remnants of the Burning Legion in a world that's totally oblivious to the return of Deathwing...
I do agree with you that I like the open, non-instanced concept of WOW... but it would be cool if they could find a middle ground where your actions seemed like they actually produced results. There are cases where this does happen as part of a major story line within a zone... but once the story line is complete the zone reverts back to the way it was before you started the story line.
That said, I'll continue to grind for the end game raiding. I'm really hoping it's all it's cracked up to be.
Thanks for the response! The Death Knight starter area is the perfect example of WoW pushing the story through instanced (phased) space.
That will be up to your motivation and perception of "fun". 😉 I think the quest chains are good if you like paying attention to the story or even if you don't. The last time I played WoW was during the WotLK expansion. I liked the 5 player dungeons. You could occupy much of your time repeating them and they were challenging enough for me, although some kicked my arse. But with them as with the much more difficult 25-40 player raids, how many times can you repeat them and remain engaged? Every game I've played, the longest I've lasted is about 12-18 months before I hit the wall. The longest I've played any game was WoW, 18 months the first time, 12 months the second time.
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Liquorpuki
macrumors 68020
In WOW they call this "phasing." There's more of this at the higher levels but it's limited.
Back when I played AO, the developers would actually schedule in-game events to push the plot. The in-game events would have developers logging into the game as NPC's and acting out a script. The first one I saw had some type of procession through a city for some major NPC I can't remember. During the procession, some random player shot and killed the NPC, which wasn't supposed to happen. The devs ended up incorporating this into the plot and having the police or whatever arrest the player. Pretty funny
Yeah, GW didn't have that raiding concept. In some ways you could consider every instance a raid, although they topped out at 8 man and the game's NPC party mechanic destroyed the social aspect as you could solo every instance with your own party of NPCs rather than having to team up with other players.
WOW has it's own low level flaw in that it encourages characters to go solo to complete quests faster.... a team of two on a gathering quest will have to gather/kill twice as much before they can complete the quest than if they did it on their own.
Both games have their good and bad points... Kind of makes me wish they would team up and learn from each other.
You must've chose some profession tutorial like "Exploration" or something. It was a while ago when I did the tutorial, but I think I did industry and it was easy enough to make stuff and sell and mining was really simple...but boring as hell...which I did mostly AFK. 😛 And I also ventured into missions to do some fighting, which was hard...until someone helped me with some tips.
Anyways, to answer your question, I actually didn't do any of that scanning stuff until way later when I quit and came back to the game to play a little bit for some "expansion" if I remeber. But it was really weird at first, but there's a youtube tutorial that prolly describes it better than in-game stuff. I didn't know what I was doing either and brought some ppl into a wormhole some dude had coordinates for and we couldn't get out because I didn't have the right scanning items. LOL That is...until some dude who lived in the wormhole scanned US down and tried to kill us, but then felt sorry for us because we were such noobs and gave us some good probes and website on how to use them. So then I fine my first exit wormhole in about an hour or two...but it's to deep Russian territory (who were ruthless). And I was trying find a safer wormhole for a while, but then my friends got frustrated and decided to exit the wormhole. Well, they got blow up trying to get back...but that was one of the funnest sessions I had. 😛 I mean, now I can find most things in a couple of minutes but it took some practice. And you need to use the shift and alt keys to make it easier.
But so, nah...you don't really need to explore in the beginning unless you really want that profession. But if you want to find the most expensive items later, you will need to find (or have a teammate find) these spawn bases which have escalating fights to a boss. And if you want to go into wormholes, you need it too, unless you're with someone who has it...and doesn't get killed. You also need to be real good at it if you're into scouting out other ppl to try to kill them. Unless you're freind does that role once again. But one popular thing some noobs do is scan down dead unlooted mobs that questers leave behind ( I think it has a hour or something) and make some easy money. In populated solar systems, you might get "free loot" where some ppl don't bother looting or do this thing called "salvaging" where you use an item to extract craft mats from destroyed ships. And this can be loot from more valuable ships that you would not be able to kill yet.
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As I recall, for WoW kill and/or collect quests, you get credit for a joint kill, but you do have to gather your own allotment of items.
Sad thing was I was following a youtube video exact, they were finding it and I wasn't it was so frustrating.
I did try to do ALL the tutorials for every profession because I wanted to do all of them, I thought that you had to have a grasp of everything or you were gimped.
It seems it was maybe something I should have just bypassed and come back to later when I had mastered a few other things.
If star wars doesn't pan out for me I will move over to EVE but its too close to release of that now to jump into EVE for me!
You're right, but a lot of times you're on parallel quests to the same area, so while you're trying to kill 8 mobs for one NPC you're also trying to collect 5 items for another. In the end it takes longer than it would've taken to do it solo.
The real advantage to grouping is being able to challenge harder objectives, but the difficulty at lower levels are so well scaled to soloing there's no real incentive to do it. I've done it a few times to defeat an elite, but as soon as it's dead the group disbands and everyone goes their own ways.
I guess that's the catch... make it too hard and noobs won't play long enough to develop into hardcore players... make it too easy and hardcore players will find it boring. I feel a little stuck... I'm past the noob content, but not advanced enough to discover the harder content (that I really hope is coming).
Did you try the overlap 5 probes (in plus formation) one like this? When you get more skills, you can use 8, but many ppl say they just use 7 in octahedral formation, with one in the center. Though I used to just use 4 (in square formation) and it was fine for most stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heYfTA00Idg
I did a search and thought you might have hit an older video. They changed it some couple of years ago. Or they added new content that requires many more probes or something, i dunno. It's supposed to be that overlapping radius increase the strength or some crap like that. I never figured out the "science" from the scifi aspect of it.
its still fun... slightly problematic but still working decently with Wineskin, and I think Crossover supports it too.