Gaming World Forums
General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: The Truth on June 25, 2008, 02:40:33 am
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Since I always see people posting threads with things like "Krinsdeath told me this game is good should i play it?" and "How is this game?", and since the mods haven't had this brilliant idea yet before me, I thought i'd make a topic we could all update on reviews of MMO's we've played. I have played MANY so I think I can start it pretty well, and I'll add all of your thoughts later.
World of Warcraft
What can be said about WOW that hasn't already been said? It came out in late 2004 and since then has had more people play it than any mmo that has ever been made.
Casual/Newbie Friendly?
The game is very casual friendly, however on some realms you will have a hard time as a new player finding people to level with.
PVP?
Probably the most balanced pvp of any game I've seen yet (Handsome Lamb will probably say something about guild wars so this will be updated soon). The classes are fairly varied, however end game pvp has degenerated to a war of attrition because of a newly added stat called Resilience. World pvp on most servers is practically non-existant because of a lack of people leveling and flying mounts. This will probably change somewhat when wrath of the lich king comes out
Graphics?
Compared to the newer end games they are pretty bad and cartooney. However, the low polygon count means most cards can handle it fine
End Game?
Flushed out and decidedly more hardcore than most people are used to. The encounters range from huge raid encounters (25 man) to small easy raid encounters (10 man) to heroic versions of your basic 5 man instances
All in all this is probably a great starter game for the genre, great if you enjoy competition, and great for fans of shooters.
Everquest 2
Came out around the same time as World of Warcraft and was quickly overshadowed by it. Everquest 2 offended many of the veterans from Everquest 1 because of its lack of open-ness
Casual/Newbie friendly?
Less so than WOW but much more so than its predecessor and other games like it. I did not play this for enough time to figure out if it was casual friendly or not.
PVP?
Recently put into the game, the pvp is lighter than other games in the genre, more information will be put here eventually.
Graphics?
A little bit more advanced than world of warcraft's, generally considered fairly good
End game?
Instanced and boring from what i've read.
Will write more tomorrow
RESERVED
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this is a very good idea that I probably would have got around to were I not busy!! besides disagreeing with it being the best pvp (wellll you did say the best pvp that you have played, so heh.) I disagree with Resilience degenerating the game. If anything, Resilience is the only thing holding the game together besides the stupid Rogue problem which is getting hit by Cheat Death. Without Resilience everything would be dying way too quickly, and if you think Rogues are imba now, they'd be even crazier with Resilience not in the game at all. I guess the only problem is, you still have heals designed for epic raids 10k hits on plate etc (threw out random #'s LoL), so maybe they should make heals affected by Resilience too, but idk.
(i have decided to add 1 more section to your template)
Guild Wars
Casual/Newbie Friendly:
In PvE: yes.
In PvP: only if you plan on doing Random Arenas (random 4v4), and Alliance Battles (12v12). Anything else is very much knowing people to get in. And it takes a lot of learning to get used to it, since the PvP is completely different from everything else.
What makes Guild Wars special:
*Lack of grind to really do anything. Anything you grind for, gives you a completely optional benefit, or no benefit at all, and these benefits are generally very small ones that rarely mean anything to you.
*8 skill skill bar. Ya, you only get 8 skills, but you get over 400+ skills to pull from from 2 classes to make 1.
*Built from the ground up for PvP, unlike a lot of other MMOs (World of Warcraft, EQ, etc)
*Buy to play, then its free.
*Uses a chapter model, so you can buy Prophecies/Factions/Nightfall in any order and link them to your account. Eye of the North is an expansion tho.
*Completely instanced, to prevent kill stealing/loot stealing/etc.
*Actually has a traditional story told through in-game cutscenes.
*The server(s) are always up. The only time they've ever been down is when they had to do a roll back from an economy error. So, it's only been down once in 3 years!!
PvP:
*Random Arenas: 2 random teams of 4v4.
*Team Arenas: 2 chosen teams of 4v4.
*Heroes Ascent: You take your team through a series of challenges, vs 1-3 other teams, in a variety of game modes, on a variety of maps, in order to win in-game loots.
*Alliance Battles (Factions only): 3 chosen teams of 4 vs 3 chosen teams of 4. Capture nodes to earn points, 1st to 500 wins.
*Hero Battles: (Nightfall only) 1 human player & 3 AI vs 1 human player & 3 AI. Capture nodes to earn points. First to 20 wins.
*Guild versus Guild: The high level play of Guild Wars. 2 teams of 8 fight each other in a completely original game mode that plays like a combination of Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Assault.
PvP is fairly balanced, and while it has its fair share of imbalances, is way more balanced than anything else out there on the market now. PvP is very much about skill, relying on weapon swapping, calling, splitting, spiking, pressure, interrupting, knockdown chaining, chiizu dancing, flag running, etc. CC's are at a minimum in GW, meaning movement can be the best skill you have. Kiting properly is the best skill to learn in GW.
Graphics:
(http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/640/gwscreen028lrgit8.jpg)
(http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/3352/gwscreen128lrgos3.jpg)
(http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/1149/gwnscr059lrgfx9.jpg)
(http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/7159/gwenscr002lrgyz1.jpg)
(http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/4320/os1120qm9.jpg)
I'd like to point out that this game has lower system reqs than WoW too.
End Game:
PvE: Doing elite areas/dungeons/completing titles.
PvP: GvG/HA/doing whatever else you like.
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I disagree with Resilience degenerating the game. If anything, Resilience is the only thing holding the game together besides the stupid Rogue problem which is getting hit by Cheat Death. Without Resilience everything would be dying way too quickly, and if you think Rogues are imba now, they'd be even crazier with Resilience not in the game at all.
well dude if resilience wasn't in the game they would REBALANCE THINGS around that fact so that's hardly an argument. i think he meant that the general direction pvp's gone in since things like resilience were added into the game has been pretty gay, in which case i agree. my interest in pvp drastically declined from 60 to 70, even though i did it just as much, and i know a lot of people who feel the same.
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I'd like to point out that this game has lower system reqs than WoW too.
lies! i can barely play GW on my pc, but WoW works pretty damn well.
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lies! i can barely play GW on my pc, but WoW works pretty damn well.
It's probably your vid card then. GW requires just barely a slightly better vid card than WoW, but requires a lot less RAM etc.
well dude if resilience wasn't in the game they would REBALANCE THINGS around that fact so that's hardly an argument
Which is why they totally did that instead of adding resilience...
They can't even rebalance things with resilience in the game, they took the easy way out so that they wouldn't have to balance as much. It became an issue of actually balancing all the stuff that needed to be balance, or cut that list by like half by adding a new stat that counters all that stuff and saves time. That's fairly obvious.
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Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
Age of Conan is the newest entry in the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game market. Age of Conan received huge hype, some even called it the World of Warcraft killer, along with still upcoming Warhammer: Online. Of course hype is hype and Age of Conan lacked many of the promissed features. It's still an excellent game that brings new combat mechanics to the genre.
Age of Conan throws you into the world of Hyboria. You can choose from 12 different classes. There's 4 archetypes with 3 classes in each. Under Priest archetype you have Priest of Mitra (crowd control healer), Tempest of Set (magic damage healer) and Bear Shaman (melee healer). Under Soldier archetype you have the tanks: Guardian (heavy armor juggernaut), Conqueror (support and offtank) and Dark Templar (magical tank). Under Rogue you have melee DPS such as raging Barbarian, stealthy Assassin and swift Ranger. Under Mage archetype you'll find the Demonologist (classic ranged magic nuker), Necromancer (master of undead pets and support) and Herald of Xotli (melee combat caster). Each class has two trees of feats (talents for WoW-fags) and one general tree shared by archetype.
Age of Conan is a bit of hybrid MMORPG, as all zones are instanced. What this means that there's multiple instances of same zone. You can freely switch between these instances on spawn points scattered through out the regions. A new instance is created when the old ones get "full" (50 or more players I've heard). This is one of the ways that cause the world seem a lot less open and massive. The zones themselves aren't that huge and there's not many of them. To travel between zones you have to talk to a non-playable character or interact with doors.
Dungeons come in multiple flavors. You can solo most dungeons, and you can go Epic mode which turns the monsters into epic group ones. You can also find epic modes of normal play zones. There's also of course traditional epic only group dungeons and group "zones", which are like traditional group dungeons except they're open for all groups. These group zones are mostly viewed as waste of time due to high competition for bosses and extremely slow respanwing times.
Questing in AoC can be divided in three parts; the beginning, Tortage and Barachan Isles, is very impressive experience with fleshed out content, voice acting and epic single player campaign (Night time Tortage). Around level 18 - 22 you'll get out of Tortage and get into more traditional MMORPG world. The voice acting is gone safe for destiny quest NPCs, which you meet at level 30, 50, 60 and 80. After around level 50 (or earlier if you don't do other lowbie area quests) you'll start running out of quests fast and have to resort to good old grinding. Funcom is constantly working on more quests and content so you don't have to grind so much but so far it's been slow. After level 50 you usually get quests for 2 to 4 levels in every new zone (about every 10 levels).
The Endgame PvE is in very bad shape currently, with raids bugged, group dungeons badly balanced or bugged and no real way to make money except do the same grinding you did to get to level 80 (which is the maximum level). Majority of the end game raiding content has been already cleared so so far it doesn't seem to be much of a challenge.
PvP wise the game is fun. So far world pvp isn't that hard to find and you can always visit the battlegrounds of AoC. Battlegrounds include (so far) team deathmatch and CTF (skull in AoC). While there's only one DM map, there's 3 maps to choose from for CTF. You can also queue for these pvp minigames from anywhere at anytime. If you've got big guild or lots of friends you can try siege battles. Siege battles are 48v48 world pvp matches where one guild (or in future alliance) holds their Battlekeep (requires tier 3 city keep) and the other guild (or group) tries to make their way to the battlekeep and capture it. There's siege machines and mounts to add some flavor to the massive PvP. Currently massive siege pvp is pretty unplayable with crashes, bugs and bad performance even with best of the best computers.
PvP in AoC is rather balanced as items and levels don't impact your performance much if at all. There's no penalty in damage done or dealth for being higher or lower level than your opponent. In future however killing lowbies makes you "wanted", and if you get killed while being wanted you can drop your items for others to loot. Class-wise there's still lots of work to be done.
Other activities you can do is bar brawling (not yet in game *sigh*), roleplaying (there's PvE and PvP RP servers) or tradeskills. Tradeskills include traditional smiths (weapon and armor), alchemy for potions and stuff and jewelcrafting for creating gems for crafted items with gem slots. You can also choose to be an architect, which is more guild oriented trade as they are the ones that build guild city structures and siege machines. Architect differs from other trades in that it's a huge gold sink and no single player can alone finish all the architect quests and you won't make any money by being architect.
Guild cities themselves bestow buffs on the guild members depending on what buildings you have build. Guild city also keeps access to merchants, traders (auction house, mail service and bank in AoC), better tradeskill craftables and quick teleport (depending on where your city is located). The guild city is three tiered wonder. It's huge and has 10 buildings, two gates and a lot of towers and walls. Once your guild has reached tier 3 keep, the guild can claim a Battlekeep (9 in each server) and build a PvP city to defend.
The combat mechanics of Age of Conan are a lot more involving than most of the games in the genre; there's no autoattacking. You have to succesfully execute combos and hit enemy where they are weakest (you can see enemy's melee shields around them to see where to hit). You can also move all your melee shields to one side (you have 3 shield "points") or divide as you see best in three basic directions; left, top, right. You can also use 'X' for active block that gives you defensive bonuses but drains your stamina each hit you take. Casting is a bit more traditional wait for cast bar to finish to deal damage and so on. You can use terrain to your advantage greatly against magic as you need to be in line of sight of your target.
Graphics-wise Age of Conan is as good as you can get in MMO genre. The game looks stunning and will look even more stunning once they finally enable DirectX 10 extras. However, the client is very badly optimized so some areas, such as Old Tarantia Docks can bring newest beast machines to their knees. If you thought Crysis required an expensive rig, think again. Funcom has however done a lot to make the game run smoothly and there's lots of options for tweaking.
Age of Conan is extremely fun game to play, although lacking in content at higher levels and has quite a collection of bugs. Funcom is churning patches at almost two per week rate to fix it. And if they do indeed manage to fix everything, Age of Conan has high chance of being the first real competitor for WoW. If you're planning to get in Age of Conan I would advise you to wait some time so Funcom manages to make the game better as it feels like beta game currently. However, if you like PvP action with PvE options, then you might like Age of Conan even in it's current form, I know I do! It's a refreshing change from WoW.
Conlucsion: Age of Conan is very promissing game that was released a little bit too early. Give it some time and we have the next big thing since World of Warcraft in MMORPG scene!
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Which is why they totally did that instead of adding resilience...
They can't even rebalance things with resilience in the game, they took the easy way out so that they wouldn't have to balance as much. It became an issue of actually balancing all the stuff that needed to be balance, or cut that list by like half by adding a new stat that counters all that stuff and saves time. That's fairly obvious.
i don't understand your point here at all but what you initially said was acting like somehow, since rogues are bad right now, if they took resilience out of the game completely, they would leave EVERYTHING ELSE the same and that is very dumb. they only did half the things they did with the expansion in terms of pvp because of the addition of resilience, and if it hadn't been added, then a bunch of other shit wouldn't have been, either. you are STATING THE OBVIOUS here but i don't get how it relates to what i said whatsoever.
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i don't understand your point here at all but what you initially said was acting like somehow, since rogues are bad right now, if they took resilience out of the game completely, they would leave EVERYTHING ELSE the same and that is very dumb. they only did half the things they did with the expansion in terms of pvp because of the addition of resilience, and if it hadn't been added, then a bunch of other shit wouldn't have been, either. you are STATING THE OBVIOUS here but i don't get how it relates to what i said whatsoever.
basically what i am trying to say or get across is that if resilience wouldn't have been added, it would have been even worse off because they probably would not have removed everything else out of the game. Or at least, I really really doubt it. They either would have made the game more DAMAGE DAMAGE or went they way they went with it. They seem very lazy with their balancing, and I doubt they would have taken the monumental task of removing everything resilience nerfed by nerfing it all.
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resilience, or something like it, had been in planning for quite a while since before the expansion came out. i don't think they added everything and then just TACKED ON resilience, although it can sometimes seem like they did. i've read what actually happened was they planned for some pvp-geared defensive stat, and balanced all the abilities they were making around that. i really think the game would've gone in a different direction had they not known about res when they were designing all the new class mechanics!
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When is someone gonna do lineage2
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lineage2.... GRIND! There review done.
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Mabinogi
Casual/Newbie Friendly:
PvM: Somewhat, read on
PvP: In The North American/International version, there is currently only one PvP zone and I personally haven't gone there.
What makes Mabinogi special:
*Its not quite as grindy as other MMOs. Mind you that you can grind, but it isn't as needed.
*Lots of non combat related stuff to do. You can cook, fish, compose music with a simple midi 'esque interface(not terrible familiar with it myself though), tailor clothing, weave cloth, Blacksmith, and other stuff. Some of these activities have been done in other MMOs though, and the NA/International version is only on what would be considered Version 2.2(The korean version is on 8.5 I think).
*Can create a character as young as 10 and as old as 17. Age factors into how your stats go up when you level. You also receive a stat and ability point(what is needed to increase skill levels) boost every saturday as your character ages 1 year then. You CANNOT die from old age. You can also be reborn to a younger age and carry over learned skills and resulting stat bonuses from said skills.
*While their current AI is somewhat flawed, you can get a pet to help you in combat/guard your personal shop/act as extra inventory.
*Combat requires more than hitting auto attack and occasionally using a skill or a potion. You have to pay attention as to when to use the Defend skill for an example. If the monster is going for a normal attack, you'll block it and take much less damage and it will be stunned long enough to attack back. But if it went and used the Smash skill and you were still defending, your getting hit. Its a bit rough to put into words(This is why I say PvM is somewhat newbie friendly, if you don't pay attention to what is taught to you in the first few quests, you might find the combat rough) .
*Personal Shops require one of the premium services and even then you can only set one up in certain areas, so while there will be areas with lots of people with shops up, they aren't everywhere like in RO.
*Game is free to play, although there are 4 premium services that can be purchased for 1-30 days. They are:
Nao's Service gets you up to 3 revive on the spot with minimum EXP penalty plus all your equipped gear gets blessed's a game day. If you have less than 3, you get an extra one at 6am each game day. You also get a birthday present every saturday from Nao, the games mascot. The presents are always accessories that add to defense. You get a special one on your 20th in game birthday.
Extra Storage is pretty much as it says. You get twice the storage space, plus you can access the storage of any other characters you have on that account, It also allows you access to various sized bags. These bags allow you to set up a personal shop if you purchase a Merchant license from the bank of wherever you are. While you have you shop up, you can change prices and add/remove stuff on the fly. If you have a pet guarding your shop, you can still do so while away from it.
Advanced Play nets you an item from the cash shop every real life day. You can either pick from the predetermined item of the day or select a random one. This is the only way to get certain items like Skill Reset Pills(bumps a skill down 1 level, can't go lower than rank F), Remote Coupons(access the bank or healer of the town you are closest to to buy healing supplies or access storage on the fly)
Fantasy Life Club is all 3 of these for half the price of buying all three separately.
Things that aren't so great about Mabinogi:
*Crafting skills like Tailoring, Potion Making and especially Blacksmithing take a LONG time to level up and require in game money to do so for some materials.
*If you want more than one character on your account, you have to buy a character card. They cost 7900 NX (roughly $7.90) for a basic card with has the most limited options for making a new character, and 9500 NX (roughly $9.50) for a premium card, which has lots of options. These options are just your appearance though. If its a new account, you get a single free card which is just a basic card.
*Rebirthing uses the same cards as making a new guy. However, you have to wait at least 3 weeks between rebirths, so unless you do it regularly, its not that bad.
*The only way to get another free card is to have NO characters on your account, so unless you only have one guy, remaking isn't a very viable option like it is on other games.
*Once your character is 26 or older, you stop gaining stats on level up and you stop gaining AP for aging. You still get 1 AP for leveling up and you still get stats for leveling skills or from eating certain foods.
*Pets cost real money. Unlike from what I read about Maple Story though, where pets last 90 days, once you buy a pet, its yours for good.
*If you enjoy story, then you currently HAVE to subscribe to one of the premium services to do story related quests. The game is totally playable without it, but this still might be an issue to some. I say currently as it could change in the future, but I dunno.
*Currently only North America and the Oceania region can access the North America version, which is what my review is based on. It was originally North America only, but as of 2 weeks ago, they allowed access from Oceania. Other regions will likely get access soon.
Endgame:
In its current state, there isn't too much of an end game on the NA/International version. The game only went commercial around the end of march. As of writing, when you hit "the end", you could either hit the battle arena or focus on your crafting.
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When is someone gonna do lineage2
i think you mean... Lineage ][. and we all know there's only one gw member who's hardcore enough to try something as daunting as that....
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me
but I've only played private servers WHERE THE GRIND IS NOT AS BAD AND THERE IS A FUCKLOAD OF PVP WHICH MAKES THE GAME LIKE 132424 times better
so I don't think I could write a legitimate one but I could probably write pserver one
but yeah I think chainer should write one even though retail sucks imo
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Haha Unguided, I love your Maple Story review.
That game is cool for a whole.. Well, hour if your lucky. The platformer element was really unique and cool when the game was new, but.. Maple Story has zero depth and absolutely no reason at all to really play. What are you even working towards when you play? Nothing. Most pointless MMORPG ever.
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Age of Conan
Upon hearing about this game some years ago, I saw tremendous potential to break this stagnating genre out of it's rut. A heavily pvp based game with an active combat system with real collision detection? Massive sieges? No Massive gear grinds? Things sounded too good to be true, and looking at the game in it's current state, this much is true. Even on formidable computers the game performs sluggishly in group pvp, the combo system is a gimmick at best and there are many, many bugs that hinder gameplay.
Casual/Newbie Friendly?
I'd say yes. Gear in the game makes little difference in PVP, so you can get by with minimal gear. Of course after leveling up there isnt much to do...
PVP?
Providing you choose a PVP server, there is a fair amount of it in this game. Keeping quest spots for yourself, and certain public dungeons are great. Namely the sewer dungeon "The System", which involves groups of players navigating through a labyrinth like area facing both NPC enemies and enemy parties. The area drops some nice looking armor and it's an all around blast to play in. Unfortunately for this game, this is the only well designed public dungeon in the game, and it's a mid level one that actually penalizes you for coming back at max level.
There are PVP minigames, or battlegrounds if you play WoW: but nobody bothers to play them.
Lastly, the combo system; while acceptable for PVE is pretty bad for PVP. If you're a melee character; you're going to be in for a lot of frustration, as landing combos (as of some patch that bugged them) is more luck based than "skill" based. For example, if you queue up a combo, charge at a stationary caster who's in the middle of casting a spell; your combo will at random times just not work. It is the equivalent of playing a FPS, shooting someone in the face with a rocket launcher; and nothing happening to them.
In the event you do get your combo to land, the victim of your attack is able to move around and do anything they like while your animation plays. High level combos suffer from an exceedingly long flesh out time. To further add to bugs, if you're combo is interrupted during the animation by any form of crowd control, the damage you inflicted will be refunded, even if the character was dead.
Graphics?
The game's graphics are technically impressive; should you be able to run the game well. I find my computer, exceeding the recommended requirements mantains a 30-40 FPS in solo play, and 20-25 FPS in group play. Furthermore, lowering the games setting to increase performance actually REDUCES performance.
End Game?
There is little to speak of. If you reach level 80 you have the option of participating in bugged raid encounters, PVP minigames nobody plays, and griefing people who are still leveling.
End game instances are unfinished, or just poorly made. For example a dungeon called "onyx" is a group dungeon much like "The System" but is rather poorly designed.
The game promises a lot, but delivers nothing but a shallow, buggy experience. Zone disconnects happen often enough to be annoying, random errors occur with the game's client, causing it to freeze for 5-7 seconds. Should you have an issue with the game there is no customer service to speak of (You're essentially helped by helpful members of the community, helped being a charitable phrase), and lastly the game's community is probably the worst I've seen since Final Fantasy 11.
I haven't regretted a purchase this much since Unreal Tournament 3. A complete waste of money.
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Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard saga of buginess?? The first and only game I ever beta tested, pre ordered for close to 100 dollars, and quit within two months later. Brad McQuaid's "Vision" was shared and longed for by thousands and thousands of fanboys like myself. Vanguard promised to be the deepest mmo of all time. The graphics looked amazing, the crafting was spectacular,it even had a good looking diplomacy system. However it was extremely buggy in the beta. Microsoft dropped them and Sony picked the game up (a past enemy of McQuaid's). The game buggy and Sony hemoragging money they released it about 6-12 months earlier than it should have been. Promising ourselves everything would be fixed when it went live, a huge amount of us pre-ordered the game and started playing. While the game was fun, and demanding on a pc; it was still filled with tons of bugs. At this point I quit the game and only came back about a year later.
I came back because I heard rumors the game was fun again, and much less buggy. It was very fun, less Crashes to desktop and such. Overall the game is still a very good game if you still long for the decidedly hardcore past of the original everquest. Huge death penalties, a huge world, and intense dungeons. Some areas you WILL get rocked without a good group.
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Fury
I am not even going to bother.
Do not play this game.
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Man :[ I have played so many MMORPGs and I will say this now. WoW is probably the best you will find. Sure it isn't very well designed, is totally unbalanced, is way too big, only seems to focus on end game content (try and make a new character, you will soon find that level 1-50 instances are unplayable because you are literally the only person to play them) and in general has a lot of horrible things about it, but compared to more or less every other MMORPG it is so much better.
Anyway!
Age of Conan is first.
Could be a good game, but it was released way to early. The game is full of bugs and it is harder to avoid them than to find them, half of the features (actually nearly all of them) that the game boasts do not exist in any form (the case the game comes in literally says "ENHANCED FOR DIRECT X 10", but has no support for Direct X 10 yet), most of what the game has does not work (stats, equipment, skills, feats and so on).
The game is horribly unbalanced to the point where something like a Necromancer or Assassin basically can never kill a Guardian because the Guardians Hp regenerates faster than those two classes can do damage (I am not joking by the way), I've seen Necromancers 20 levels higher than a Guardian standing there for 10 minutes trying to kill an AFK Guardian, and stuggled to get the Guardians Hp down to 90%. If you play this game play as either a Ranger, Tempest of Set or Guardian, Rangers and Tempests of Set basically kill everything in one hit, Guardians can never be killed, every other class sucks basically.
Content in the game starts out pretty good, up until level 20 or so, but most of that is single player. After level 20 you enter a generic MMORPG world with generic "kill x amount of monster" or "get x amout of item" quests, only most of them are horribly designed, and a quest line will require you to go into the same dungeon/area several times to do different things (kill 10 bandit grunts, now go back and kill 10 bandits, now go back and kill 10 elite bandits, now go back and kill 10 bandit leaders, now go back and kill the bandit king), this is made even worse when the area is at the other end of a very large map that takes 20 minutes to walk to. After level 40-50 the number of quests you will find drastically drop and grinding is the only other alternative, which on PVP servers is made impossible because larger guilds will put maximum level players at all enterances of an area to kill anyone who enters the only area you can grind in while they themselves grind (or they grind for a low level player).
Things to do at maximum level basically do not exist yet.
Lord of the Rings Online
Holy crap, I don't know where to even begin with this one. This game has potentially one of the most awesome game worlds ever, but the game, it's setting, world and everything is SO BORING. The areas you will play in and the quests you will do are all dull and unmemorable, the selection of races and classes all suck, they all play in very similar ways, have similar skills and abilities and are not very different at all.
Things to do in this game are also boring. Most quests are generic MMORPG kill stuff or collect items, but this game contains exactly 4 different enemies, wolfs, boars, spiders and bandits, and every single quest will involve killing one of those. (I really wish I was joking by the way, but I am not) What makes this worse is that quests are not optional. If you do not do quests leveling up is close to impossible as you need thousands of exp to level up, but are lucky to get 10-20 exp per kill, and here is only every usually small grounds of 5-10 enemies that take 5-10 minutes (or more) to respawn, trying to grind from level 1 to 10 in this game will probably take you several weeks if not months to do.
I can't say much more about this game though, I never got past level 9 because everything about it was just so dull and boring.
Every Korean/Chinese/whatever MMORPG ever
They all suck, have very little content and focus almost entirely on grinding. Most of them only exist as a form of making easy money by selling ingame items at stupid prices (I saw one game selling something like +50% exp potions for 30 minutes for $1 each).
On the upside these games are worth a good laugh. I have seem some of them make the most insane claims ever, "700 million players worldwide!!!", "the most visually stunning game ever!!", "the first every game with flying!!!", "thousands of things to do" (the game had one quest every several levels to do and nothing else but grinding), "super massive update just added!!" (which contained exactly 1 new item and 2 new monsters yet was a 100mb download) and more. Also, if you are ever feeling down about something I always find that randomly picking one of these games and thinking to myself "holy crap, it could be worse, I could be like the people playing this game" seems to cheer me up. Hahaha.
Avoid these games at all costs, regardless of how the game looks, what people say about it or what features it boasts, the game sucks and is no different from every other Korean MMORPG you have seen or played.
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Things to do in this game are also boring. Most quests are generic MMORPG kill stuff or collect items, but this game contains exactly 4 different enemies, wolfs, boars, spiders and bandits, and every single quest will involve killing one of those. (I really wish I was joking by the way, but I am not)
Are you serious? There are no orcs, goblins, balrogs, trolls, anything cool like that?? I remember when I played the trial version and killed a lot of those four things you mentioned. I didn't notice any problems with the diversity in terms of what I fought, but it was just a trial. You're telling me that the shit I fought in the one day I played the trial is the shit that people who have been playing for months fight on a daily basis?
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There is exactly one Balrog in the game, all those other cool things you mentioned do exist, but they are very uncommon. Uncommon as in there is only maybe 4 types of Goblin in the game (4 "clans" or whatever, each clan has maybe 4-8 different types of goblins, such as warriors and... warriors, that all look and act very similar but have different names such as Goblin Scout and Goblin Crusher). As for the other types of enemies you listed... I saw none of them, except for one troll in a cave that had been turned into stone.
The enemy diversity (and general diversity of the game) sucks, really badly.
Like I said, the developers had such a wonderful world and setting to base the game on... But they totally fucked all that up and 99% of the time you will be killing pigs or wolfs to collect 8 pig testicles or 5 wolf paws for some stupid quest (and to make it worse you WILL be playing as a Warrior, because all the classes are basically that, except for Loremasters, which are suppose to be Mage like but only have a single skill that is even worth using and even then it is much easier to simply use a melee weapon anyway, effectively making you a squishy warrior with useless magic).
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The LotR trial wasn't too bad, but WoW was, sadly, a better game (and I quit playing WoW as well). Is there any MMO out there that is better than WoW?
pssst don't tell anyone else this, but yes and its call guild wars.
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It's probably your vid card then. GW requires just barely a slightly better vid card than WoW, but requires a lot less RAM etc.
WoW requires a geforce 2 or higher while GW requires a geforce 3 or higher. Considering that video cards are not only more expensive than ram, but that they also have more of an impact on performance than just more ram, I would consider GW to have higher requirements, if only by a bit.
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Who the hell doesn't have something better then a freaking GF4.
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i know, what losers they must be, huh?
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I have integrated graphics and 256mb of ram.
Guess I should be barred from all games despite that good looking good games can run on my hardware and a lot of useless stuff could be taken out and optimized to be able to run on older machines.