Hunt for a MMO

[SacredGuyver]

As the title says, I'm looking for a MMO to play when frustrated with Alteil (which has been quite often, as of late).

I currently have Zero Online installed (Mech-based MMO, rather decent, hate the PKers), and have played several others.

I may try playing WoW if I can find a fun/decent private (read: FREE) server to play on with friends, otherwise I won't touch it.

I've seen a preview on X-Play for Requiem: Bloodymare, and it looks somewhat interested.

Also, Atlantica Online has been brought to my attention a couple of times. I haven't really looked into it that much, except to find out that if you don't like the game after reaching level 50, they will buy your character from you for $20.

So any suggestions/opinions/help/whatever?

[DanTheTimid]

Well as a rule of thumb I despise MMO for reasons I've posted several times now on this forum so I won't go into them again, HOWEVER, because I have so many friends who do like MMO I have been introduced to many of them so here are some of my thoughts:

Zero Online - Tried it once, never cared for it. Tutorial was a little confusing, controls were a little clunky, and outside of the mech concept it just felt too much like just another MMO. Positives were that if you like mechs, its pretty much your only MMO choice, and of course its free.

Angel Online - Tried it once, never cared for it. Pretty much the same squabble I had with Zero except I like angels alot more then I like mech's so I really wanted to like this, but at the end of the day it just felt like another MMO. Positives were that it was free and involved angels.

Atlantica Online - Tried it once, never cared for it. I was tempted to give this game another chance but I've just been too busy lately. The fact its not only free, but they'll actually pay you for your level 50 character is pretty ingenious on their part cause in the end the only people getting to level 50 or higher are those that truly enjoy the game, those like myself who found the battle system too rushed and clunky and just the overal game play feeling like "just another MMO" will give up well before 50 and thus never get anything and of course if you actually enjoy it your less likely to get rid of your character for 20 bucks.

Trickster - Actually played this one a decent amount, though I don't have any truly high level characters just a mid level Bunny. When I first played it I didn't care for it but later they improved the game when they started adding Episodes. Though you can still do whatever you feel like and just grind your way to high levels if you want, the episodes give you an actual goal to accomplish beyond gaining levels, help dramatically speed up the level up process, and inject a tiny bit of story and character into what is at its heart still just another MMO. I haven't played the game recently so I don't know how its been improved/changed since I last played but if I had to recommend a MMO this would be near the top of my list.

Rappelz - Played this one a more then most though not nearly as much as Trickster or WoW. That graphics are flat out amazing for a free MMO. This game tries to copy WoW in pretty much every fundamental way so many would say your just better off playing the actual WoW but the highlights of the game are: Unlike WoW its free to start and no monthly fees, unlike WoW every profession can get pets and the game has a very detailed, almost pokemon like pet system for catching, training, and customzing pets, unlike WoW's cartoony graphics character in this game looks very attractive. If your looking for a free WoW or better yet you enjoy WoW and pokemon this one might be worth looking into. In my case the things I hated about WoW were the same things that lost my interest, a lack of real story or direction.

World of Warcraft - Friends forced me to play this one a couple times. Aside from being expensive to buy the game (was 50 back when I played), and insanely expensive monthly fee to keep playing the game (15 bucks a month every month for the rest of your life), now you've got like 70 dollars worth of expansions to get on top of that. As much as I like alteil, if they had that kind of a pricing plan I'd have dropped it in a heart beat. If your a fan of the typical MMO with its endless grinding, no clear goals or purpose, spending hours upon hours waiting for the right party to form or just spent in long boring trips over land/sea you've already traveled across 100 times before AND you've got tons of excess money lying around that you don't know what to do with and would rather give to an already excessively wealthy company then say donate to the needy or some charity then I strongly suggest getting WoW. Oh and did I mention once you get to high levels you get revolve your entire day schedule around the game since you need to keep your schedule free at certain dates and times every week for big guild raids that go on for hours and in the end likely won't even get you anything for your trouble when some one else in the group takes the item that dropped you wanted or the item you wanted doesn't drop at all?

Guild Wars - Not a true MMO but it was pretty good for what it is. You have to pay once to get the game but theres no monthly fee. Theres a strong emphasis on story and quests, you should never have to actually grind. The downsides are that if you don't find the stories that interesting or the unique missions that entertaining the low level cap means theres not much reason to keep playing beyond pvp. PvP is extremely well balanced and one of the games strong points, but for people like myself that just don't care for PvP, it does take away a major part of the game.

Record of Lunia - Again, not a true MMO as you have instanced areas This ones completely free and again this one has a strong emphasis on story and quests over pure grinding. The battle system is set up like an old 1990s arcade game (think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, Simpsons, etc) where you move around maps beating the crud out of things and an arrow occasional shows up to tell you to keep moving, but of course you have level ups and lots of new skills to learn also giving it a sort of Fighting game aspect to it as well. I enjoyed this one alot, but when it went from beta to release I lost my character because I mispelled it in the transfer application and now they want me to pay money to fix my mistake and transfer it. I neither want to pay money over something dumb like that, nor start all over again thus I haven't played this in some time now.

Grand Chase - Never quite understood this one, it seems to be set up like a 2d fighter (think Street fighter if ryu moved through worlds), but I couldn't figure out the inputs to do all the crazy special and super moves everyone around me was doing and I've been busy so I never really came back to it. I may come back some day though as it was pretty intriguing and had a format similar to Record of Lunia being free and having an episode by episode level set up.

Maple Story - Played it a bit when it first came out but quickly lost interest do to the lack of direction or quests and the ridiculous amount of grinding. Its kind of a 2d platformer (think mario) which is very unique and the graphics are really cute, if it had some sort of actual story or goal I might have actually liked it, but alas the goal of getting my level higher by killing the same enemies over and over indefinitely wasn't enough to keep me playing.

[Kamerynn]

Gotta put in my 2 cents.

Stay the heck away from WoW. Don't get me wrong, the gameplay is just fine. However, there are a lot of MMOs with fine gameplay that don't cost an arm and a leg. Since you seem to be more interested in something free (based on your WoW private server point) I'd suggest trying out Atlantica. The battle system might seem a little clunky until you get used to it. Once you're a high level and participating in PvP, you'll likely feel that the battle system really is a tactical marvel, like I do.

Instead of offering overpowered artifacts that would discourage anyone who doesn't spend cash, the Atlantica online shop (item mail) offers items that make the game more convenient - things like extra inventory space, or items that you just don't feel like grinding for.

Atlantica has, by far, the most robust community system of any MMO I've seen. Give a gift to a lowbie and receive experience according to the gold value of the gift. Train others in crafting skills to raise your own crafting skill levels. Join a guild so that you can participate in building up your town, attracting people to live there, and gaining extra exp. Mentor a lowbie and gain mentor points that you can exchange for late-game items. When the person you're mentoring reaches level 30, you get a nice gold bonus If a new player is having difficulties, they can activate an in game help feature and ask their question globally; the response that is chosen as most helpful nets that player a cool item.

This one is definitely worth a try. WoW doesn't even compare; you'd think that the $15 monthly fee would entitle players to continuous content additions, but it doesn't. Out comes a new expansion and you're expected to shell out more cash... so why the monthly fee? After trying Atlantica, I let my WoW subscription drop off the face of the earth. I'd have to be a sucker to give those scam artists more cash.

[Grain]

Guild Wars - Not a true MMO but it was pretty good for what it is. You have to pay once to get the game but theres no monthly fee. Theres a strong emphasis on story and quests, you should never have to actually grind. The downsides are that if you don't find the stories that interesting or the unique missions that entertaining the low level cap means theres not much reason to keep playing beyond pvp. PvP is extremely well balanced and one of the games strong points, but for people like myself that just don't care for PvP, it does take away a major part of the game.

I bought Guild Wars last weekend.

It's not an MMO at all. I'd describe it as an RPG with a multiplayer option. The PvP is balanced, but, repetitive.

Currently, they're having a half off sale. One gets a discount if one buys two campains and downloads the client online, but, oddly, they only allow one to buy a single campaign per week.

[DanTheTimid]

I have no insight into that sale, I got each campaign when they first were released long ago, but the game DOES try to simulate an MMO. Basically the only areas that are truly on the server like in traditional MMOs are the towns, you could at any time run into hundreds of random people running about in town. However the rest of the giant world surrounding the towns is instanced. This means once you leave town the only people you'll ever run into are people who were in your party when you left town, you won't run into some other random person or team whose currently camping out the kill you need for your quest. The game also has something not very common to MMOs called henchman/heros, these are basically computer controlled players you can recruit for your party if you don't find enough real players who want to come on whatever quest/mission your attempting or better yet if you just want to explore/**** around with no specific goal in mind. I think more then anything else it was the henchman/heros that made the game fun for me as it allowed me to play the game whenever I wanted however I wanted and still get the dynamic of a party atmosphere with out always having to try to get on the same time as friends or wait around to form ideal parties.

As for the pvp, they always said they used magic the gathering as an influence. You can see it in how your character is set up, you can find/buy/capture TONS of skills, but before you leave town you must always make an 8 card hand out of your skill collection and those 8 skills are the only ones you have access to until you return to/reach another town. Similarly for pvp you have to choose 8 skills before hand and those are your only skills you have access to for the pvp match. Thus in many ways pvp is about forming the best deck of skills and then best utlizing them in combination with any team mates you might have. Actually I seem to recall they had a special format where all the games skill are turned into cards and your basically dealt a hand/deck of random skills from which to set up your character (basically a booster draft of skills). Just like a card game its the skills/cards that keep the game fresh and interesting. With 3 campaigns and 1 expansion the game has a TON of skills to choose from in making your character but as far as I know they're haven't been any new skills since the last expansion release some time ago so its understandable that the meta may be getting a bit stale for those like myself that have had the game since release.

[Peralisc2]

I currently play fallensword to waste 10-15 minutes every now and then.

Grand Chase - Never quite understood this one, it seems to be set up like a 2d fighter (think Street fighter if ryu moved through worlds), but I couldn't figure out the inputs to do all the crazy special and super moves everyone around me was doing and I've been busy so I never really came back to it. I may come back some day though as it was pretty intriguing and had a format similar to Record of Lunia being free and having an episode by episode level set up.

In the menu where you select the server there was an option at the bottom "practice duel" or something like that. There you select a character and then you duel a character that does nothing. All combos for the char you duel with are described in the upper corner right and will turn from white textcolor to grey textcolor if you manage to do them.
I stopped playing it at level 28 or so, since it sometimes gave error messages without any reason and kicked me out of the game. O_o

Anyways i know someone who might still be playing it. But i think quited playing it since he started playing cabal, said to be the best free online game.

[SacredGuyver]

Anyways i know someone who might still be playing it. But i think quited playing it since he started playing cabal, said to be the best free online game.

I managed to play Cabal for a while, but when it came to doing the timed dungeons, I wasn't able to complete them thanks to IRL. -_-

Right now, I'm playing Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, so I'll see how things go with that for a while.

[Phades]

I dont know how things changed for Guildwars since eye of the north, but it is a "reasonably" balanced pvp environment. The scenarios are repetative, but all pvp can be summarized that way. You don't have to worry about grief play as much, but it can exist in the random arena formats. The game wasn't hard to min-max and it easily became stagnant with each adjustment made to the game, since it was more of a rotation of what is good rather than making other options as good as the current meta. Of course somethings were so rediculas that it could never happen that way. The core mechanics have a few flaws revolving around the core attack animation, but at least there is some depth in play when it comes to ranged attacks and mobility. Unfortunately other mechanics regarding ranged assialants have flawed imbalances skewing entire professions and skill lines away from what is considered optimal.

The Pve is a snorefest though. You can solo most of the game without even using the henchmen and in many instances the henchmen actually slow you down or **** you up. With a party of reasonably compotent human beings in a thought out party setup, you can basically steam roll almost all of the game excluding the exclusive quests and some bonuses in missions. Triple chop warriors come to mind as one example of this and have them supported with things like splinter weapon or other options for fast 1 shot AOE kill situations.

Pvp is more about controlling the tempo of the fight and timing of coordinated strikes while pve is more about persistance and playing for pretty icons in that game. Like the majority of games, it does some stuff well and some other things rather poorly.

[edgarfigaro]

It's all about Guild Wars, if you want a professional quality MMO. The grind is almost nil and you can keep swapping abilities so there is virtually no worry if you plunk points into a useless skill. But it does have it's limits.

I've played quite a few MMOs (Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Everquest, Pirates) and I've found WOW to be the most polished, easiest, and most fun game to get into.

The benefit to a paid MMO is that EVERYONE is on the same playing field. With free MMOs, they purposefully lock you out of content so that you'll buy select high end über items and weapons to sustain the game. Also, in-game ads are usually abound taking you out of the experience. They also tend to be either graphically behind or lacking in game play polish or both.

I assume you want to play an MMO because you either like grinding and leveling or you prefer the social aspect. I would highly recommend WOW if you want an awesome MMO experience. You definitely want the most convenience and easy time when playing an MMO. Trust me!

And with the whole YOU HAVE TO BUY ADD-ONS AND EXPANSIONS b*******, you don't. Completely optional with ANY MMO and you can still interact with everyone who has the expansion (with WOW at least). Also, WOW offers updates pretty regularly which rebalance skills and classes, add new weapons and armor, new instances, etc.

BUT, if your dead set on not spending money, I think Guild Wars is a suitable game. Although I think a single player RPG like Neverwinter Nights would be better. Unless you want the social aspect.

[AfroSquirrel]

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine is in Closed Beta right now, but access codes are being handed out like popcorn, so getting in shouldn't be an issue. It's currently my pick for a free MMO.

I'll check out this 'Zero Online', though.

I want either a Nanoha or a Macross MMO. For the Macross one, Bards would finally be a worthwhile (read: awesome) class, and the Nanoha one could have some nice action going on.