Before I start building up this Great Text Wall of China, let me come clean about something to the TL community.
My first MMORPG was Runescape.
As embarassing as this is, Runescape was a game that a few buddies introduced me to back when I was 13 and I played avidly (around 2 to 4 hours a day) for almost 2 years until WoW came along. Of course the same happened once I got into WoW. I found myself playing almost 6 hours a day at some points but since then, that has been cut down considerably, partially from me getting really fucking bored of WoW and MMORPGs in general but also because of getting into SC2 somewhat.
Part 1 - Origins in Runescape
I was but a mere 13 year old boy at the time, happily spending my time in senior school when a friend (Who I will name S) talks me into playing Runescape. After a few hours of play, I get a little bit bored and sort of see the appeal but not too much of it.
And then S gets another friend of his called J to start playing. Me and J began to start training up combat together and damn, this game was starting to get fun with more people around. Hell, you could say I was enjoying the game, even though in reality it was (gameplay wise) like a shittier version of Diablo.
And then disaster strikes. Because I made an error when browsing the web, my family PC (which I had at the time) was infected with a crapton of malware. It was also an old, choppy piece of crap anyways but thanks to the adware you literally couldn't move 5 squares without a gigantic minute long lag spike and then two popups appearing, and this was a regular occurence.
Hence, for about 2 weeks, Runescape was unplayable for me. In those two weeks, S and J also told me they've quit the game for good. J only popped back on so that he could give me his full Rune armor (which he passed down to me as a farewell because I finished Dragon Slayer by then) and then put the game down permanently.
I continued to play and found out there were more people who played. I then had two more friends who played Runescape, O and A. The differecne is they were members and I soon became a member after them.
After a while, I quit Runescape Members because I found a new game to play. World of Warcraft. I would sometimes pop back to see what the fuss was all about but every time I go back, I am just overwhelmed and chased off by the constant tedious backtracking to get items that every single quest makes you do, and the massive amounts of experience required to even gain a level. And believe it or not, there are people with 99 in every skill, who must have committed social suicide in order to do so.
Didn't intend that line as a piss-take towards MMO players, but think about the hours required to gain a level in RS. Now try getting all skills from 1 to 99.
Part 2 - World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade:
I joined WoW around the time TBC came out. My brother introduced me to it not long before quitting himself. I made myself a Hunter and along with me, O, A and another friend from school, D started to play the game.
O quit soon after at around level 30, when getting bored. A and D were also hunters and D got to level 70 long before I did. Once I got to 70, I joined their guild until the raid leader poached all the raiders and formed his own guild, taking D with him.
I applied when I was already 70, and was simply told that they had too many Hunters. A week later, A joined their ranks. I called sour grapes and began to quiz them. Eventually, I found out that the raid leader hated me and basically refused to let me into his guild, for no reason whatsoever.
Hence, the one thing that I liked about MMOs, playing with friends was out of the picture. My friends had been poached by a hardcore raid leader who basically flipped me off.
Eventually, I tried to find my own way and here is where the direction led me. Where did it lead me you ask? Through a mountain of shitty guilds run by elitist assholes.
I left a guild over an officer's nerdrage at me discussing tactics for a boss they were doing in guild chat despite not being in the raid, acting like he was the boss and I should have just "shut the fuck up."
I even got booted from a guild after 2 weeks with no explanation, having done nothing wrong, had my public message changed to "Whiny emo faggot" by one of the officers several days before and had said guild trash my reputation on the server over a two year period.
Out of all these guilds, I found one that was truly worthy of my time and actually made raiding fun. It was a guild called This Is Sparta and I was a part of their main team, doing DPS almost as good as their Tier 5 geared rogue GM.
Even when undergeared for Kara, we still took out Nightbane in 2 attempts and had two unlucky wipes on Prince at 1%. And then all good things must come to an end as the guild members got poached and we disbanded.
I eventually formed my own guild going into Wrath, but that fell apart.
Part 3 - World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
My guild fell apart, and I had joined another one in the process. Eventually, after a good run, I was assigned as an officer and raid leader, but I didn't know what I was getting myself into.
I was running 4 raid nights a week, pushing two groups through to try and get an ultimately good raid team. I was also doing all the work recruitment wise, recruiting players just to have them leave or get poached by a better guild later on.
At the same time, all the other officers and the GM didn't give a shit, they just raided on their geared alts with a high progression guild. So much for caring about their own guild's raid nights.
Hence, I only made it 7/14 through Ulduar-10 and a full clear of Naxx-10, dealing with ragequitters, whiners and DPS who generally were too lazy and stupid to even try (Imagine the DK with Tanking Presence on constantly pulling aggro whilst doing 1.5k DPS. That was my guild.) By then, my real life had caught up with me, I was doing worse than expected in college and I had to quit my role as a raid leader, just to have another guy come in and kick all my friends.
Eventually, I gave up trying to find a new guild as the guild I had been booted from back in TBC had their way, I was blacklisted form virtually every major raiding guild over the lies that have been spread about me, It was time to reroll.
So I went to Emerald Dream, rolled a Paladin and haven't had trouble with crap guilds ever since; Unfortunately, there was still a sense of elitism as I had to be the best to literally get a raid spot.
Some of my achievements on my paladin (I was healing) include:
Clearing Onyxia-10 with the More Dots achievement in a group with 2 healers and gear consisting of almost entirely item level 187 and 200 blues.
Clearing ToC-10 with 2 healers in Naxx equivalent gear.
Clearing Auriaya in Uld-10 (Unfortuantely, the group was too dumb to even handle the tactics for subsequent bosses and ragequit after a wipe.)
Clearing 11/12 ICC-10 (and wiping on the Lich King at 35%), and 3/12 ICC-10 HC.
I eventially quit the game, but came back for Cata. After all, it's a fucking hugely hyped expansion and individuals like TotalBiscuit were lauding the game's changes and new content.
Part 4 - World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
At Crapaclysm, I really began to question my enjoyment of the game, and asking the following questions:
Is there really any meaning to completing a tier of content? My progress will just become obsolete with each new tier or expansion.
Is there really any point to going up to the level cap again?
Will i ever be able to clear content like Blackwing Descent, The Firelands. Dragon Soul etc without having to commit time equivalent to a fucking full time job? And this counts for both farming the insane amounts of gear needed just to be accepted by a guild, getting a fucking degree level knowledge of boss tactics in each dungeon and raid and being online for 5 straight hours of hardcore raiding when the raid leader demands me to be on.
Will I ever have the potential to hit 2200 rating, a point where I will actually be ACCEPTED by the PvP community?
Will I ever find an LFG pug where the tank, healer and DPS know what they're doing. Or will I be doomed to wipe, get constantly blame for it and get votekicked by a bunch of morons?
Will I ever enjoy the game again?
Will I ever play a class that doesn't get shafted in terms of PvP potential. TBC and Wrath Hunters were horrible to play and Cataclysm Ret Paladins were horrible too, like a Warrior if you stripped out all the burst damage and utility.
Did I enjoy being forced to do hundreds of repetitive "kill x amount of enemies" quests in order to level up? I mean I like grinding but not being forced to do quests on top of that in order to get an experience rate that wasn't like a drip.
Hence, I have decided that I will probably not be playing in Mists of Pandaria. Blizzard screwed up Cataclysm so much that I don't think their next expansion deserves my time.
I'm hoping the Looking for Raid feature changes some of that, because I am fed up of basically being given a schedule and being expected to adhere to it. It's meant to be a fucking game
Bonus Part 1 - MapleStory
MapleStory always has a place in my heart as a game that's always had potential but met so many setbacks. I started playing GMS back in early 2005 when a friend introduced me to it. I had literally never seen so many vac hackers in my life. And the worst part is that it literally took months for the admins to do anything about them.
Then in 2006, there was an outburst of float/attack anywhere hackers. I saw one big example of a Warrior spamming an area bsaed ability and literally instagibbing everything on the map. They also used to hide off the map with their Float hacks, making you unable to report them.
I came back to GMS in 2009 when the 4th Job, Cygnus Knights, Aran and Evan classes were around. The game had improved but the servers were so buggy.
Then I played the Big Bang update. Oh god, my mind was fucking blown.
The game was literally transformed. Rather than either grind for 10 hours to go from level 30 to 31 in a safe place or go to a place where you'd be instagibbed for more XP per hour, they streamlined the content so much, and literally shortened the levelling time to a fifth of what it was.
MapleStory had actually turned into a passable game. And then I realised the game was buggy under WIndows 7, causing things like system crashes and full on keyboard lockups. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Bonus Part 2 - Final Fantasy XI:
I only briefly played this game. I think it could have been great if the graphics weren't so dull and almost borderline grayscale, if the grind wasn't astronomically big and if the travelling time wasn't so great (It took around 25 minutes to run across South Gustaberg.)
It was also one of the only games where levelling as a group was beneficial, a game which other MMOs like WoW, MapleStory etc haven't quite sussed out yet.
And so I leave it to you, the readers:
If you made it this far without thinking "Oh for fuck's sake" and closing your browser then thanks for reading this gigantic wall of text. I now wish to open the discussion about MMORPGs to the readers.
What do you all think of them?
What new MMORPGs are actually good?
Is my attitude towards MMORPGs not actually being a game and more of an overscheduled timesink accurate?
My roommate is fighting Rag as I write this. I never played top raid content in WoW but I can understand your frustration. I wish I could give you some advice but im not that experienced in time consuming MMO's (just time consuming RTS'), I hope that you find a game that you can enjoy with good friends. for what its worth my roommate seems to be able to run firelands without playing like its a full time job, although he has wiped on rag about 5-6 times now :p
I actually liked Cataclysm a lot, but they just dumbed down PvP (really the only thing I play video games for) way too much. If you want to do the more social raiding aspect, or just the playing by yourself PvE, Cataclysm is AMAZING. If you haven't checked, look at the new stuff they are about to release. I don't even like raiding and it almost made me renew my account.
In answer to your questions: 1. I kind of like MMORPGs, but the problem is they are too much of a time sink. When I sat down to play WoW or LotRO, it would be a good 2 or 3 hours gone and not much would ever get done. However, they tend to be more fun than most other games, mostly because of the alternate reality aspect and because it is just so open ended.
2. My dad plays Rift, and he says its pretty good. Personally, WoW is still the best, but the PvP declined pretty rapidly, while the PvE is at its best ever. From what I've seen, the rest are pretty bad, excluding LotRO, which was decent.
3. If you care about the game, yes. If not, no. You can either sit down, do a BG or two and be done in like 45 minutes, or you can play 6 hours straight doing random shit all you want.
On September 26 2011 10:34 Torte de Lini wrote: Where the fuck is Ragnarok Online?
Seriously, how can you miss that? It's great animations, absolutely gorgeous and memorable soundtrack, funny creatures and decent quests.
A bit of a grind? Yeah, I guess. But the PVP was awesome [WOE], the different classes were a nice twist (dancer, monk, etc.) tier classes.
My God, the card system and classic leveling?
Classic. I'd go back in an instant.
I never played it but I heard about it. I did play a few other MMORPGs I didn't mention like:
PristonTale - This was before WoW actually, but me and my bro stopped playing it when it turned pay to play.
Knight Online - It was okay. There wasn't really much point to it and it was confusing. The ironic thing is that when I was playing, it was supposedly a F2P game but you couldn't get on a server because it was over capacity without subscribing.
Fly For Fun - Felt kinda dull. Level 15 turned from spamming 1 ability to spamming 2 abilities, and level 20 is like HORRAY I CAN FINALLY FLY....and 5 minutes later getting bored because there's no content apart from grinding mobs that did nothing but attack you.
Dofus/Wakfu - The most boring game I had ever played, and yes, I am listing them both as one game because they are basically the same near identical game.
Warhammer Online - I played during the Endless Trial. Jesus Christ that game was near death... There was virtually nobody online
On September 26 2011 10:34 Torte de Lini wrote: Where the fuck is Ragnarok Online?
Seriously, how can you miss that? It's great animations, absolutely gorgeous and memorable soundtrack, funny creatures and decent quests.
A bit of a grind? Yeah, I guess. But the PVP was awesome [WOE], the different classes were a nice twist (dancer, monk, etc.) tier classes.
My God, the card system and classic leveling?
Classic. I'd go back in an instant.
I never played it but I heard about it. I did play a few other MMORPGs I didn't mention like:
PristonTale - This was before WoW actually, but me and my bro stopped playing it when it turned pay to play.
Knight Online - It was okay. There wasn't really much point to it and it was confusing. The ironic thing is that when I was playing, it was supposedly a F2P game but you couldn't get on a server because it was over capacity without subscribing.
Fly For Fun - Felt kinda dull. Level 15 turned from spamming 1 ability to spamming 2 abilities, and level 20 is like HORRAY I CAN FINALLY FLY....and 5 minutes later getting bored because there's no content apart from grinding mobs that did nothing but attack you.
Dofus/Wakfu - The most boring game I had ever played, and yes, I am listing them both as one game because they are basically the same near identical game.
Warhammer Online - I played during the Endless Trial. Jesus Christ that game was near death... There was virtually nobody online
On September 26 2011 10:36 Antimatterz wrote: 2. My dad plays Rift, and he says its pretty good. Personally, WoW is still the best, but the PvP declined pretty rapidly, while the PvE is at its best ever. From what I've seen, the rest are pretty bad, excluding LotRO, which was decent.
Is RIFT any good in terms of PvP content? I heard the PvE was pretty phenomenal and that the game did really well at being a WoW clone rather than trying to innovate.
I was also considering giving Runes of Magic a shot, because I heard it's hands down the best F2P MMORPG ever released.
My first MMO was Tibia, an isometric 2D game. I played it a LOT and I still have a bunch of good memories about it. The game is a bit grindy, as there is no level cap, quite a big death penalty (xp- and item-wise) and there are no instances (at least there were none when I played), so spawns were often fought for, but all those things made the game pretty challenging. PvP was pretty badass as well, unless you wanted real fighting motions (like swinging swords, etc). Unfortunately, all the nice and reasonable people I met there were always quick to quit and I got left with a server full of people who either did not speak English or were too elitist to listen to me. As soon as a server gets old it all devolves into a guild wars, account-sharing, rage-killing, nooby-bashing, power-leveling, twinky hatefest, which is unbearable... game's only fun if you have a premium account and get to play on a fresh new server... until that server gets old again. The fun thing was that up to the point where the elite of the server had established themselves, servers had real history. Fights for dominance. Old players who became legends. Rising stars who made themselves known or fell down again. It was fun. Totally different MMO experience if you ask me. I wouldn't play it today though. Many updates have ruined the game, it isn't cool any more. I also often believe that a lot of what I remember as awesome back then, was because it was my first MMO and my first real online experience.
The next MMO I played was Aion. Nice game as well, even though the crafting system is crap and the quests are either too hard or too easy. PvP is fun, but gets frustrating when you get constantly killed by alts on highest PvP-gear (main reason I quit... gear gave you too much of an advantage over others). If it wasn't for the monthly costs I'd probably get back to playing it though.
Now, something you have to realize and something which is especially valid for MMOs: playing with friends makes a game fun. My cousin got me into Warcraft 3, he also played BW, which was the main reason I got into SC2. Friends of his are playing as well, we got our own TS server where we meet, not just to play but also talk about all kinds of stuff... I probably would have long quit SC2 if it wasn't for them, 1v1 without someone in your ear who's currently laddering as well, is just boring. We all plan together which games are up next and hell, I'd even start playing shooters again (i.e. BF3), because I know they are with me there.
It's because Multiplayer does not just equal multiplayer. Multiplayer with friends is multiplayer. The rest is just singleplayer vs. either scripted events and bots or living dudes who are just bots with better A.I.
Edit: lol forgot about Flyff... asiagrinder. I hated it.
First MMO - Runescape. Old school! Played that for 2-3 years with my bros I think.
Then about 4 years years ago to this day (making me nostalgic now) I started playing Twelve Sky in closed beta. Played that hardcore for the full 2 and 1/2 years it was running. When it shut down due to a game-breaking hack I was so sad. (wrote and deleted a paragraph explaining why it was so good, but sadly I can't sum it up in a way that would do it justice)
Only thing I regret about loving that game so much is the fact no other MMO will ever match up. So I've only really played 2 MMO's, tried most of the others but they just aren't fun. And thus I play games like SC2 now.
ICC with 30 percent buff was the biggest joke in the games history and slap in the face to hardcore raiders, i dont know how anyone couldnt clear that content unless they were in pure greens
First MMO, runescape, lol, member for a while, mainly spent all my time dueling. oh well prob about 2 years total.
Then I played Star Trek Online, I played that for so many hours, maxed like 6 characters, still love that game and might go back to it b/c SC2 is too stressful and SWTOR is too expensive, I pretty much only like RTS or MMOrpg's this sparked my interest in Age of empires online, but its kind of gay so I put that on hold for a while.
On September 26 2011 11:13 FinestHour wrote: ICC with 30 percent buff was the biggest joke in the games history and slap in the face to hardcore raiders, i dont know how anyone couldnt clear that content unless they were in pure greens
Believe it or not, I joined loads of groups that couldn't even handle the first 4 bosses of ICC, let alone with the gradual rise of the raidbuff.
I even had a group wipe constantly on Deathbringer Saurfang with the 30% buff up.... God they were bad....
I would consider looking at Guild Wars as well as the currently-unreleased Guild Wars 2.
ArenaNet did a fine job with Guild Wars 1, which is a rather refreshing twist away from WoW and other more conventional MMOs. Its focus on a heavily instanced environment feels kinda weird and a bit stifling for conventional MMO players, though the game's main storyline is done very well with dedicated mission zones and cutscenes. Plus, the graphics aren't too shabby for a 6 year old game, and the awesome music is composed by Jeremy Soule, who has composed for Elder Scrolls, KOTOR, and Company of Heroes.
Personally, I am most excited about Guild Wars 2, which seems to be an audaciously innovative MMO. It takes the vast majority of conventional MMO rules and throws them out the window, instead opting for some rather clever and intuitive alternatives. Instead of standard quests, you have "events" that occur on the map which you can participate in for a bonus, and the outcome of these events actively alter the map itself. PvP also looks interesting, with a standard 5v5 structured PvP as well as a "World vs World" mode where the three global servers play against each other on massive maps that allow for hundreds of players to play on them.
Oh, and Guild Wars has no subscription fee, only a fee for the boxed game or CD key. Guild Wars 2 also plans on having a similar system.
I played Lineage 2 extremely hardcore. Super fun game but HUGE timesink, basically the worst grind of any MMORPG released in the western world, unfortunately that's what made the game good, because it had REAL PvP, and it meant something when you died. It bothers me so much when dying means nothing, much less you can't even talk to your opponents ... (cough wow). The open political system just made the game so fun. Unfortunately it was so time consuming, it got to a point where I just had to say no more. lol.
Either way, had tons of fun, if no one knows anything about Lineage 2, my guild had some pretty cool fraps movies with really nice production value. Feel free to take a peak.
Is my attitude towards MMORPGs not actually being a game and more of an overscheduled timesink accurate?
Pretty much, the problem with MMORPGs is casual friendly games with no grind are just meaningless, and a real grind means... you basically can't have a life outside the game, but the game can be really fun, and you will meet tons of awesome people, even if you're all somewhat demented in one way or another from sitting behind a computer too long.
My first online RPG experience was D1 and then D2. I loved playing those and I would play them for days and days forgetting to eat, forgetting to feed my fish, just completely immersing myself in it.
Then I played Guild Wars for a bit because I was anti WoW and then I had a class with a dude who was all about WoW and he showed me the error of my ways haha, I mean i had played Warcraft 1 and 2 a couple times, but it didn't interest me as much as Starcraft, but it was kinda cool to see people from the storylines in real 3D. Course Iunno about any of you but I had a hell of a time paying for WoW+constantly upgrading my computer(i was 16, working as a cashier at a grocery store) to make my experience better and actually let me run vent+raid without a FPS of 9-10 lol.
I started playing WoW when BWL was released. Grinded to 60 in roughly 10 days and then geared up as best I could and did all my attunements, then joined the 4th or 5th most progressed guild on my server, did a bunch of content(ony, rag, nef, AQ20), was there at the guilds 2nd nefarion kill , didn't see AQ40 though because about that time the main group got poached by the 3rd most progressed guild and I went the a guild who was running MC and ony every week and filled the rest of my gear, dicked around in Naxx a bit in guild alliances/freelance/friend of a friend.
TBC hit, and I was one of the first fifty 70s on my server. I cleared a whole week to play, didn't go into my classes, asked for a week off work, and basically disappeared into my room grinding it out, watching movies, eating ramen and chicken noodle soup or bagels lol, mt dew cans littering my computer desk. Guild hopped and did Kara and Gruuls a few times got all the gear I needed though after a few rns, then got in on a few guild alliance TK kills where i got my tier 5 shoulders, about this time WOTLK came out, and I was primed because I was in the WOTLK beta for like 2 months(I also got to go to Blizzcon 2008 and OMFG it was a blast, met nada, savior, yellow, jangbi, tasteostic, cloud, idra, lotta people, and got to play 42 alpha SC2 matches.
WOTLK hit and i again cleared my schedule for 4 days, didn't go into classes, didn't go into work, just grinding and grinding and doing quests. About this time I just kept guild hopping again and then had to stop playing all together for about a month, after being in the top 20 highest toon on the server. I came back grinded out to 80 because a friend of mine had bought the game for the first time and leveled up. I server transfer to play with some mates from my work at the time and then I quit and they stopped playing so I stayed there and put in applications to various guilds till I got a mid-range guild who was in ToC10 man, and stayed there for a bit. Then a month before Cata Quit.
When Cata was released,I bought it at midnight with my friend and cleared 2 days to play, grinded to 85in 3 days, played for 2 weeks grinding instances and rep for blues/epics, quit, came back, picked up some free epics, quit and haven't been seen since.
On September 26 2011 11:33 Milkis wrote: i wanna play RO again
but it's not the same anymore sniff
RO2 looks like a failure too
seriously finding an MMORPG just with a lot of expandable content that's just a lot of *fun* farming items is ridiculously hard nowadays
every mmo is like in beta testing forever and ever ;(
Are they still pushing RO2? I thought they dropped that shit.
They revamped the whole thing, they're coming out with something much closer to the original AFAIK. I'm quite close to some people that handle RO publishing.
And I'd honestly want people to take a look at the 3rd jobs now... maybe it's getting fun again.
My first MMO was Tibia as well. I played it for a good 7 years. It used to be so amazing, you had to aim spells, and training your skills, like sword fighting, distance fighting, etc. was done by using that weapon type. It meant more than levels even. And dying could literally mean losing 30 hours of work. So you were always so into it.
They made it too casual friendly though, dying means almost nothing, they added hotkeys, and it's way easier to kill monsters that used to be extremely difficult.
On September 26 2011 11:34 eviltomahawk wrote: I would consider looking at Guild Wars as well as the currently-unreleased Guild Wars 2.
ArenaNet did a fine job with Guild Wars 1, which is a rather refreshing twist away from WoW and other more conventional MMOs. Its focus on a heavily instanced environment feels kinda weird and a bit stifling for conventional MMO players, though the game's main storyline is done very well with dedicated mission zones and cutscenes. Plus, the graphics aren't too shabby for a 6 year old game, and the awesome music is composed by Jeremy Soule, who has composed for Elder Scrolls, KOTOR, and Company of Heroes.
Personally, I am most excited about Guild Wars 2, which seems to be an audaciously innovative MMO. It takes the vast majority of conventional MMO rules and throws them out the window, instead opting for some rather clever and intuitive alternatives. Instead of standard quests, you have "events" that occur on the map which you can participate in for a bonus, and the outcome of these events actively alter the map itself. PvP also looks interesting, with a standard 5v5 structured PvP as well as a "World vs World" mode where the three global servers play against each other on massive maps that allow for hundreds of players to play on them.
Oh, and Guild Wars has no subscription fee, only a fee for the boxed game or CD key. Guild Wars 2 also plans on having a similar system.
I played Guild Wars: Factions.
I know this will sound like blasphemy but OH GOD THAT GAME WAS HORRIBLE. I remember trying to get to level 15, getting a quest in Kaineng City, going to the Undercity and just constantly getting destroyed by level 20 mob packs.
The issue about the game is that ressurection sickness is unforgiving, because I tried to pick it up again two years after it came out, nobody was online anymore, and the NPC party allies are in one word.... retarded.
Furthermore, groups are MANDATORY. In any zone past level 10, you cannot solo it else a pack of mobs will just autoattack you until you die 10 seconds later.
So basically, I'd end up with a full party wipe, have like.... -45% Ressurection Sickness and have to leave and re-enter the area to hopefully get lucky with the mob packs next time.
Even then, the PvP was imbalanced and all I could really do at my stage of the game was play Random Arenas, which is a bit like LFG in WoW. 90% crap groups. There was also a tonne of reliance on sites like PvXWiki.
And to me, the 4v4 squad battle style of PvP felt more like Guild Wars was a failed attempt at an e-sport rather than a serious game. Sure there were some 8v8 scenarios such as Jade Quarry and even Alliance Battles (which I never did) but I still feel like that was massively neglected.
I am not sold on GW2 however, especially after playing the crock of shit that was Factions. I haven't tried another Guild Wars game since but I don't see how Prophecies, Nightfall or Eye of the North will even be worth playing after putting myself through the gaming equivalent of waterboarding.
Tell me that game is actually going to have some content and progression, like WoW does, not repetitive "Kill 20 Naga Soldiers" style quests and a boring storyline.
Factions' storyline in a nutshell was:
"Be taught the basics"
"Master Togo goes on an expedition with you to discover that the undead have infected Shing Jea Island"
"You go with Master Togo to investigate the source of the plague on Shing Jea, while he retardedly (like all NPCs) charges head first into a pack of mobs, gets one shotted and instantly fails the mission for you."
"Master Togo goes to Kaineng City with you to investigate a cult and stop another plague infection."
I also miss old school RO.....I played on Loki T.T
God damn getting somewhere in that game made you feel fucking PROUD.
I also played WoW from release to near end of TBC, got back in a few months after Wrath and dragged a buddy in for triple xp, and we rocked face for a good solid while...then I stopped again, and started a good little bit after cata came out since watching your friends play WoW is kinda like a crack addict that just broke the habit staring at his friends smoking crack, passing the crack pipe around.
So ya, played a SHIT ton of WoW and got a lvl 85 goblin hunter, PvPed a while with my friend and then my computer blew up and I got sad and stopped playing again.
A few nights ago I sat at my friends house chillin.....watching them pass the fucking crack pipe.
On September 26 2011 12:11 N3rV[Green] wrote: I also miss old school RO.....I played on Loki T.T
God damn getting somewhere in that game made you feel fucking PROUD.
I also played WoW from release to near end of TBC, got back in a few months after Wrath and dragged a buddy in for triple xp, and we rocked face for a good solid while...then I stopped again, and started a good little bit after cata came out since watching your friends play WoW is kinda like a crack addict that just broke the habit staring at his friends smoking crack, passing the crack pipe around.
So ya, played a SHIT ton of WoW and got a lvl 85 goblin hunter, PvPed a while with my friend and then my computer blew up and I got sad and stopped playing again.
A few nights ago I sat at my friends house chillin.....watching them pass the fucking crack pipe.
EverCrack - Prexus Server, Ultima Online, Maple Story, DnD Online, WoW, Wakfu, Aion, Tebula Rasa.
Then some of those that have floating ads like Battle Star galactic etc... not even worth your time.
I would recommend Aion if you have the graphics and ram to support it, it has a nice ceiling for skill level with the classes.(Just it's a serious grind.)
I have to agree Wakfu was a waste of time, I thought it would be like Final Fantasy Tactics but it ended up just being a slow turn based fighting game that got boring really quick.
Back in WoW I was on Bleeding Hollow, and Gorgannash. I was pretty well known in TBC and Lich King. Torlo, Mornid. I lead gold runs, and formed some of the best pugs on the server. (Over all I was pretty friendly, and helpful, people in my personal guild got free epic mounts for all their toons =B) I also supplied all elixers/flasks for all guild raids, no cost to the raiders in my pugs.
Now I play SC2, the UMS on them, and LoL I just started about a week ago. If you play LoL I recommend playing with people it makes it about 10x more fun. Only complaint about LoL to me is anytime I try a new class and suck with it, people threaten to report you =/ Which sucks, So I have to play my best champion more than anything =(.
On September 26 2011 12:11 N3rV[Green] wrote: I also miss old school RO.....I played on Loki T.T
God damn getting somewhere in that game made you feel fucking PROUD.
I also played WoW from release to near end of TBC, got back in a few months after Wrath and dragged a buddy in for triple xp, and we rocked face for a good solid while...then I stopped again, and started a good little bit after cata came out since watching your friends play WoW is kinda like a crack addict that just broke the habit staring at his friends smoking crack, passing the crack pipe around.
So ya, played a SHIT ton of WoW and got a lvl 85 goblin hunter, PvPed a while with my friend and then my computer blew up and I got sad and stopped playing again.
A few nights ago I sat at my friends house chillin.....watching them pass the fucking crack pipe.
On September 26 2011 11:33 Milkis wrote: i wanna play RO again
but it's not the same anymore sniff
RO2 looks like a failure too
seriously finding an MMORPG just with a lot of expandable content that's just a lot of *fun* farming items is ridiculously hard nowadays
every mmo is like in beta testing forever and ever ;(
Are they still pushing RO2? I thought they dropped that shit.
They revamped the whole thing, they're coming out with something much closer to the original AFAIK. I'm quite close to some people that handle RO publishing.
And I'd honestly want people to take a look at the 3rd jobs now... maybe it's getting fun again.
I love the 3rd jobs, it's getting back into the game that will be a bitch. I really don't want to ):
On September 26 2011 12:33 GertHeart wrote: Now I play SC2, the UMS on them, and LoL I just started about a week ago. If you play LoL I recommend playing with people it makes it about 10x more fun. Only complaint about LoL to me is anytime I try a new class and suck with it, people threaten to report you =/ Which sucks, So I have to play my best champion more than anything =(.
Let them waste their reports on you.
From what I recall, getting used to a character and sucking at it wasn't a bannable offence. This isn't DotA Allstars you know where raging 10 year olds actually do have the power to kick and banlist you.
I started out with runescape. got bored after a couple years, moved on to maplestory
oh boy, did i have fun with this game. it was so much fun, yet affected my rl. luckily my addiction period to maplestory was still in primary school, from about yrs 4-6. it was awesome. probably the most capturing game i've ever played.
despite all of this, i have never, played wow. except for a 10 day trial or something which i found incredibly boring... lol.
anyway, i stop-started maplestory many times, and it was always fun. I recently just stopped again because it was boring... LOL. but i'm sure i'll pick it up some time soon
I, too, began on RuneScape. I recently renewed my account for nostalgic purposes -- the game is a bot-infested mess but it's still kind of fun to play.
I played WoW through WotLK release and quit around Cata release, then got Cata and played it through for a month or so in April and got bored with the simplistic content.
I'm just amazed nobody here has mentioned Pardus, guess it was really a niche game. (But absolutely incredible!)
i've played a ton but only care to mention the one that had me hooked for so long
ragnarok online
i played from the end of 2004 til earlier this year
of course it was on and off, many different servers, played iRO for a while but got tired of paying for it, was young ya know? switched to private servers with some friends
i quit for long periods of time between the years, and eventually got into hardcore WoE servers, high rates so you max level your char quick, focus on getting WoE gears and go all out in WoE twice a week
the mechanics of the game and GvG/WoE play blew my mind, and i was a guild leader on several servers/guilds with the same core group of people
towards the end of my RO career i made some woe videos, which were all received quite well in the communities i played with
Man i thought RO2 was announced like 3 years ago. I was hoping it would of been released so i can at least try a bit of it. RO and porings will always have a place in my heart. Double shot spam ftw
FFXI online was AMAZING. And is the reason I got into MMO gaming.
I even got into WoW beta due to a friend in my linkshell working at blizzard, and every month updating us with what they were doing with WoW.
I jumped into WoW when it released, there was just more "control" and a better UI.
WoW was at its BEST in vanilla. TBC WotLK and Cataclysm were all fun, but none of them rivaled Vanilla WoW imo.
LotRO was TERRIBLE and nearly unplayable imo.
Warhammer online would have been AMAZING if EA didnt force them to release before the game was finished. They shot themselves in the foot by pushing for a release the game was simply not prepared for. The game was TERRIBLE in beta and release, simply because it wasn't finished. Then they also tried to complete with a WoW expansion release.. shitty planning on their part. They needed to release 3+ months b4 the expac or 6months after for any real chance in this genre. Was the closest thing to a PvPcentric MMO that i have experienced, LOVED the game, but too much of it is built around the game being jam packed full of players, and since it killed iteself early on a lot of the content became near unplayable due to low server numbers.
Played GW1 the game felt more like single player than a MMO but i didnt give it much of a chance as i was hardcore WoW raider at the time.
Wish i would have played DAoC as i hear i would have LOVED it from everyone I have ever talked with about it.
The new FinalFantasy MMO was a joke and is completely unplayable... kinda makes me sad as i LOVED FFXI.
(Seriously if they would have literally given me FFXI with the ability to jump, a better interface, and better graphics.. i would be addicted to it atm, but the leveling int hat game revolves around grouping, which revolves around the amount of players your level willing to group, which is a low number now)
But I have gotten Gladiator in WoW, have downed every piece of content I ever attempted... WoW has just gotten worse with every expansion imo.
the game was AMAZING in vanilla when world PvP existed before battlegrounds(late in vanilla) and resilience (BC invention)
Now I was going to play the new SW mmo but i hear its shit, and the gameplay videos look so clunky and bad... n2m i only play MMO's for their pvp.. and it doesnt look like i should play SW for that.
Tried EvE... FFFUUUUUU that game is just way too confusing/impossible/noobunfriendly for me. And I have never ever ever had any problem jumping into a game and just getting it and enjoying it... EVE has to be the most complex game I have ever attempted to play.
But now pretty much just waiting on GW2 its my last hope for the MMO genre atm... =/. well see.
oooo forgot Aion.
LOVED Aion. The visuals are absolutely stunning, the gameplay was sick. The customizability is AMAZING. the only bad part and the reason i dont play... here is leveling "Go out and kill 10131231231231231231231234142241424124141241241241241412412412412 monsters" thats about it... such a grind... if they would have mad leveluing not a 5 hour mission of doing nothing but running in circles killing, I would still be playing it.
Ooo and CoH/CoV they were fun... but really the fun was only making cool neat looking superheroes... i was sick of every character i made by lvl 10. "Go to headquarters.. kill 5 people come back..." x 121212121221341234
In Cata i was first player in my guild to get 85... then i got 2 more characters to 85 and my guild still wasnt ready to raid... finally we started raiding as i had 4 level 85s.. and i quit playing cause the PvE content was too easy and PvP was too broken
one thing Aion does the best now imo is Massive numbers PvP. Seriously nothing looks cooler on your screen than 200 people jumping off a cliff, popping wings, and flying off to battle. Seriously its SSSOOO epic on your screen.
But now I am just waiting for a fun mmo that does LARGESCALE PvP right. Fuck 10v10 or AV 40v40 I want to see 100v100 where they actually fight, not run around eachother and avoid fights to kill an NPC at the end.
Asherons call anybody??? Greatest early mmo of all time. Amazing PvE amazing PvP amazing non-class system with complex stats and everything along iwth the coolest items in game.
On September 26 2011 13:55 MaestroSC wrote: FFXI online was AMAZING. And is the reason I got into MMO gaming.
I even got into WoW beta due to a friend in my linkshell working at blizzard, and every month updating us with what they were doing with WoW.
I jumped into WoW when it released, there was just more "control" and a better UI.
WoW was at its BEST in vanilla. TBC WotLK and Cataclysm were all fun, but none of them rivaled Vanilla WoW imo.
LotRO was TERRIBLE and nearly unplayable imo.
Warhammer online would have been AMAZING if EA didnt force them to release before the game was finished. They shot themselves in the foot by pushing for a release the game was simply not prepared for. The game was TERRIBLE in beta and release, simply because it wasn't finished. Then they also tried to complete with a WoW expansion release.. shitty planning on their part. They needed to release 3+ months b4 the expac or 6months after for any real chance in this genre. Was the closest thing to a PvPcentric MMO that i have experienced, LOVED the game, but too much of it is built around the game being jam packed full of players, and since it killed iteself early on a lot of the content became near unplayable due to low server numbers.
Played GW1 the game felt more like single player than a MMO but i didnt give it much of a chance as i was hardcore WoW raider at the time.
Wish i would have played DAoC as i hear i would have LOVED it from everyone I have ever talked with about it.
The new FinalFantasy MMO was a joke and is completely unplayable... kinda makes me sad as i LOVED FFXI.
(Seriously if they would have literally given me FFXI with the ability to jump, a better interface, and better graphics.. i would be addicted to it atm, but the leveling int hat game revolves around grouping, which revolves around the amount of players your level willing to group, which is a low number now)
But I have gotten Gladiator in WoW, have downed every piece of content I ever attempted... WoW has just gotten worse with every expansion imo.
the game was AMAZING in vanilla when world PvP existed before battlegrounds(late in vanilla) and resilience (BC invention)
Now I was going to play the new SW mmo but i hear its shit, and the gameplay videos look so clunky and bad... n2m i only play MMO's for their pvp.. and it doesnt look like i should play SW for that.
Tried EvE... FFFUUUUUU that game is just way too confusing/impossible/noobunfriendly for me. And I have never ever ever had any problem jumping into a game and just getting it and enjoying it... EVE has to be the most complex game I have ever attempted to play.
But now pretty much just waiting on GW2 its my last hope for the MMO genre atm... =/. well see.
oooo forgot Aion.
LOVED Aion. The visuals are absolutely stunning, the gameplay was sick. The customizability is AMAZING. the only bad part and the reason i dont play... here is leveling "Go out and kill 10131231231231231231231234142241424124141241241241241412412412412 monsters" thats about it... such a grind... if they would have mad leveluing not a 5 hour mission of doing nothing but running in circles killing, I would still be playing it.
Ooo and CoH/CoV they were fun... but really the fun was only making cool neat looking superheroes... i was sick of every character i made by lvl 10. "Go to headquarters.. kill 5 people come back..." x 121212121221341234
In Cata i was first player in my guild to get 85... then i got 2 more characters to 85 and my guild still wasnt ready to raid... finally we started raiding as i had 4 level 85s.. and i quit playing cause the PvE content was too easy and PvP was too broken
one thing Aion does the best now imo is Massive numbers PvP. Seriously nothing looks cooler on your screen than 200 people jumping off a cliff, popping wings, and flying off to battle. Seriously its SSSOOO epic on your screen.
But now I am just waiting for a fun mmo that does LARGESCALE PvP right. Fuck 10v10 or AV 40v40 I want to see 100v100 where they actually fight, not run around eachother and avoid fights to kill an NPC at the end.
Well said on Warhammer Online
That game had so much potential, I loved it, but they just had to many servers which thinned the population so much. There claim was "WAR is everywhere yet every god damn zone was empty.... pretty much epic fail. Not to mention even when i played on the most populated server, the other problem was that even the land in general seemed to be to spread out. If they would of just made the whole land smaller and had less servers it could of easily been the best pvp MMO ever.
On September 26 2011 13:26 ZoW wrote: I smell another TL RO endeavor brewing
too bad it dies 3 months after we start every time lol
Can you blame them? It's hard to come out on top in that game :x
If people want to play seriously on a legal server, I can hook people up to RO in the Philippines, it's much cheaper playing there than iRO, and I can get you access because I know the guys running it. If people want to compete as a big group, then I may be able to arrange something; having a new group of people with minimal ties and agenda to compete with would be a breath of fresh air for some parties.
When I was first introduced to Ragnarok it changed my life. There's something about it that will let it keep a special place in my heart <3 Even though I never did any serious MvPing or WoE. Dueling with my friends was fun but I didn't like the PvP in RO that much.
Then I really got into Guild Wars and now i'll never look at typical grinding MMORPGs the same way. I wish the PvP scene weren't so elitist and terrible, though.
Those were the two MMORPGs I spent the most time on. I tried other games for varying amounts of time from 30 minutes to a few months, including MapleStory (couldn't ever make it past level 15, the grind was so bad), Runes of Magic, Eden Eternal, Aion, Perfect World, the list goes on. None of them could get me to stay for very long :/
Mabinogi was awesome when I was younger :3 had so many gosu hyungs to leech off of too. Vindictus (Mabinogi Heroes in Korea) is said to be pretty good, but I haven't gotten around playing it lol
On September 26 2011 10:18 Clbull wrote: Bonus Part 2 - Final Fantasy XI:
I only briefly played this game. I think it could have been great if the graphics weren't so dull and almost borderline grayscale, if the grind wasn't astronomically big and if the travelling time wasn't so great (It took around 25 minutes to run across South Gustaberg.)
On September 26 2011 10:34 Torte de Lini wrote: Where the fuck is Ragnarok Online?
Seriously, how can you miss that? It's great animations, absolutely gorgeous and memorable soundtrack, funny creatures and decent quests.
A bit of a grind? Yeah, I guess. But the PVP was awesome [WOE], the different classes were a nice twist (dancer, monk, etc.) tier classes.
My God, the card system and classic leveling?
Classic. I'd go back in an instant.
I never played it but I heard about it. I did play a few other MMORPGs I didn't mention like:
PristonTale - This was before WoW actually, but me and my bro stopped playing it when it turned pay to play.
Knight Online - It was okay. There wasn't really much point to it and it was confusing. The ironic thing is that when I was playing, it was supposedly a F2P game but you couldn't get on a server because it was over capacity without subscribing.
Fly For Fun - Felt kinda dull. Level 15 turned from spamming 1 ability to spamming 2 abilities, and level 20 is like HORRAY I CAN FINALLY FLY....and 5 minutes later getting bored because there's no content apart from grinding mobs that did nothing but attack you.
Dofus/Wakfu - The most boring game I had ever played, and yes, I am listing them both as one game because they are basically the same near identical game.
Warhammer Online - I played during the Endless Trial. Jesus Christ that game was near death... There was virtually nobody online
I'm a bit offended, because Dofus and FFXI were my prime MMO's I played throughout the years.
I have to say, my MMO playing experience is a bit different than everyone else. When everyone was playing WoW in 2005-2006, I was playing Dofus. It was my first hardcore MMO I played. I started during the last few days of international beta on the Rushu server, August of 2005. I was only a level 50 or so Sadida but I had to quit playing because I moved away November of 2005.
September 2006
I got back into the game, a new server called Rosal had come out. I made another Sadida (god I love that class), and I was in the top guild at the time (still is to this day), Heaven Knights. I was promoted to officer and I got all the way up to level 150, but I stopped playing for whatever reasons around March of 2007.
I don't remember why but I do remember coming back 3 months later, and not enjoying it as much, as all my friends have surpassed me in level. I eventually quit again for good.
During the summer period to the fall season of 2007 I was looking for a new MMO to play. I swear I played every single Free to Play MMO at that time. The two games that I did stick with for a bit were Ragnarok Online and Maplestory. I only played both for a month or so though.
December 23, 2007(yes I remember the date exactly)
I started playing Final Fantasy XI. I was rediculously late for the party, but the game TOOK me in. It was actually my first "3D" MMO I have played, so to me the graphics weren't bad at all. I mean, I played Dofus. The game was made in flash but the art was beautiful, and the same could be said for FFXI.
I purchased a used PS2 version of the original box set, that came with a HDD and such (the only reason I bought it) and I also purchased a new copy of the game. I also had to buy an adapter to connect the PS2 to the internet, and a USB keyboard. I had a very crappy computer at the time so this was my only way to play a "3D" game. The reasons I went through all these hurdles though was because I played the game wa~y back in 2003 at a friends house. He let me make a character and I leveled it up to 20. I have always wanted to play the game myself but I couldn't as I didn't have the computer nor the money to support it.
So I finally bought the game that i've wanted to play for years. I started out as a Red Mage, the same as when I made at my friends house years before. I powered through the levels and when I hit level 25, a random guy named Trollzarro PM'ed me and asked if I wanted to level. I didn't have access to the area yet, but he helped me through it and I eventually joined his linkshell(guild). Luckily he started right at the same time I started, so we were both very new to the game. It was fun to have another person accompany you through the levels of a game.
The linkshell consisted of us two and a series of people we either met online, or he knew in real life. Yzoho was the first guy, he was in the linkshell before me. As he quit, a Tarutaru named Minterlint joined. She was new to the game, so we helped her out a bunch. She vanished and a bunch of Trollzarro's real life friends started playing. We had a static party and leveled alot together.
Summer 2008 I took a break from the game and I started playing Warhammer Online. I had just built a new computer and it was the first game I installed. The game was fun, and it had alot of PvP which I haven't experienced since my Dofus days (FFXI had non-existent PvP). It was also my first "WoW"-esque game I played. It was fun for a bit, but I felt it got too easy and repetitive. Everything felt very handed to me as I got equipment from quests and lootboxes.
I returned to FFXI right after I stopped playing Warhammer Online, October 2008. This time, I played the game on my new computer. The game was even better than before when I played on PS2. Trollzarro's friends all quit and he decided to join another linkshell, Wayward. I tagged along with him. We would occasionally pop back into his old linkshell from time to time though because the game allowed you to have multiple linkshells (guilds) at once.
After joining Wayward in November 2008, Trollzarro was forced to quit the game. It was only a few weeks of joining the linkshell, and actually a few weeks since we both hit capped level 75. It was like he led me to his guild, and we both leveled together, and then again led me to Wayward. As he quit the game, I was not alone and I found a home in my new linkshell.
Everyone was pretty experienced in the game(some playing since release), but was very laid back and not too serious like other high end linkshells. Being the newly level 75 Paladin, this was a great linkshell to join, as they helped me do missions and quests, and they became very good friends of mine. As I started getting more experience at the capped level, I would within a few months become one of the officers of the linkshell.
The leaders decided we would start doing more hardcore stuff, and I setup our 1 week camping of the Charybdis NM (notorious monster). We did Promyvion and Aht Urhgan quests and we were a very good beginner endgame linkshell, as we did alot of entry level endgame stuff. A few of us would join a linkshell that was more focused on specific endgame(sky/dynamis) that would meet a few times a week, but our homes were in Wayward. For financial reasons, my adventures in Vana'diel came to a closing in March 2009. It was sad and I still to this day, have feelings of returning.
I went through another binge of free to play MMO's, as I had to satisfy my addiction(lol). From around Spring 2009 to the Fall, I played quit a few titles. The few I can name off the top of my head are Flyff, Holy Beast Online, and Alteil. Oh, I also played a tiny bit amount of BW, and I played on ICCUP for just a bit (I went like 2-26). I also did watch a few starleagues going on at the time.
October 2009
Right around when the fall swung around, there was the "new" MMO coming out, Aion. My linkshell leader from FFXI had actually switched over to Aion, and joined the beta. I decided not to join until a month after release. I enjoyed playing Aion, and I met alot of new friends. From October of 2009 till June 2010, I would play, and I reached the ranks of level 50 Chanter. I completed all the endgame stuff that was there, and I enjoyed my time doing this. But suddenly, there was nothing left to do.
Comparing Aion to FFXI, Aion just didn't have enough content to keep me in place. I had completed all the tasks in game, and the storyline just didn't feel compelling. The world was very small once you knew it and it had no more depth to it. There was no more mystery for me, and so, the game felt very boring to me.
July 2010 to now
I started playing League of Legends at the time, around July 2010, and I decided to quit Aion and MMO gaming for good. August of 2010 I would buy SC2 and since then, i've been hooked on SC2 and competitive gaming.
Its kind of funny that I played all these MMO titles, and have yet touched World of Warcraft. I kind of told myself that I would never play it, as i've heard it "spoils" you from playing other games. The game that spoiled me is FFXI, and I may return to MMO gaming if a game close to FFXI comes out. I've been hoping for FFXIV to be the case, but it seems there isn't much content in it yet. Maybe i'll pick it up 6 years from now.
tl;dr MMORPGs, in the modern way, are flawed. But it has been done right and Guild Wars 2, while having some flaws, could(but really just could, because it _could_ also turn out super bad..) be the next game that does it right. Also, Ragnarok Online owns, Dark of Camelot has one of the best PvP imho; It's simple to make good MMORPGs by just thinking of them as something bigger than just a mixture of features. + Show Spoiler +
Whenever I don't play Starcraft 2, I probably play any MMORPG I can find.
Here's a list of my favourites of all time with a short explanation as this is not my blog. Just a bit of background information about my experiences.
- Ragnarok Online. Played since late alpha, early beta. Was my first MMO ever and my first "real game" on the computer (got into it through my brother.). I also got my girlfriend into playing it and this is how I made her a gaming nerd. - Ultima Online. Do I have to explain this? - Dark Age of Camelot; since my brother stopped playing Ragnarok Online and I hadn't have internet access on my computer I pretty much had to play that. But I enjoyed it as f****. It was so good and it was also the first game where I encountered PvP. - Not an MMORPG, but CORPG, was Guild Wars. It was the first game where I played PvP really really hardcore, before that I was the PvE-Grind guy(and I still am.) - WoW. Yea, I have to admit that I have a WoW phase. It lasted only 3 months and was mostly due to my friends that wanted to play it. After 3 months I said "Guys, it's lame. I go back to play Ragnarok Online." - Aion. It lasted 1 months, korean version was fun but asa it came to EU/NA patches began to suck. - I also tried any other MMORPG that is out there including Rift, Age of Conan, Everquest etc(really everything including most of the F2P games.). I'm a hardcore gamer and I'm also a hardcore MMORPG fan. But most of these games suck so I never played for a long time.
And so I did, every few months or so I go back to play on my old Ragnarok Account. What can I say, that game is hella fun. I sometimes play other games again, too. But Ragnarok Online is definitely the one I play most often, just because it's so easy to get into. Pick a build, play it. Done.
Okay, now that you have enough background to know where I come from, I want to answer your questions.
What new MMORPGs are actually good?
Is my attitude towards MMORPGs not actually being a game and more of an overscheduled timesink accurate?
I'd like to answer the second one first.
Yes, every MMORPG is a grind. Face it: The tasks you do in an MMORPG, you do them all over again everytime. You complete a quest, get a new one, kill monsters, complete a quest, get a new one etc etc. Sometimes you even don't get a quest. But after all it is all about killing monsters and doing other stuff like crafting or PvP.
Most people say "Grinding sucks, I want a good MMORPG without grinding" This is a common misunderstanding that most people have. Because without grinding, you wouldn't even have stuff to do in an MMORPG. Grinding, in this case, is nothing bad, but the only way to describe what you actually do.
Here's my small definition portion of grinding: - Mob Grinding. It's my favourite. You get a couple of friends, pick your favourite classes and then go mash the f*** out of monsters for hours while listening to music/teamspeak or whatever. It can be sooo good, especially in games like Ragnarok Online. The doing-it-alone version of this can be fun, too, but I recommend to do it with friends. This is the oldschool way and is not really done in most new MMORPGs. - Quest Grinding. This is most fun doing alone just because of the way it works. You get all your quests in a certain area and complete them one by one. Most likely you'll just have to kill mobs so you just grind some mobs, but never too much so that you just complete the quest and go. Until you don't have quests left or you're in a new area. This is the modern way of grind. - Hybrid Grinding: While you still "grind your quests", you kill every mob you can find. If respawn timings are properly, you will eventually get twice the amount of xp while only losing like 50% of the time.
What I personally find unacceptable for an MMORPG is the "quest only" policy. In a game like World Of Warcraft, which basically has a good system, like the battlesystem where you really have to think about what you do(at least when you're using no add ons), there's always no fun into the grind. You just have to questgrind all day until you get into an instance and you cross your fingers you farmed enough to have good enough equipment to get into good groups. Otherwise, you have to play with randoms. All. the. time.
Like you said, those games don't really support groups. In fact, they hurt you. If you get a group you can't do all the same quests, at least not if you didn't start at the same time and only play when the others are online, too. Otherwise, you'll always have to wait or do stuff more than one time and kill more monsters because you get less XP.
Another annoying point about most MMORPGs is that the PvP doesn't have a point. Like, for real; it's senseless. Stupid button mashing all over the place. If you take Lineage 2, PvP was a risk. It was a way to claim political power and to protect it. It was a way to settle issues and it was also a way of take advantage over something. It always had impact and a meaning if you killed somebody, at least once you get into an alliance. Which you did, otherwise you'd be dead.
Next, the crafting and economy. Whats the point of it? Imagine Aion. Lol, what senseless moneysink, it was like they wanted to support the gold farmers. Seriously? 5 Million for a CHANCE of getting a decent weapon? REALLY? I only have 2 Million, I need to farm 3 weeks for a CHANCE!? And then I don't even get to sell it if I want to use it first!? REALLY? Not only are bound items crap, because they kill the economy, but also no item duration kills crafting in it's very own way. Everyone can craft, everyone can make their stuff, why even bother leveling this shit up? Oh wait, I see, you have to get rid of the MUDflation so we have to buy this shit. Okay.
I imagine most modern MMORPGs like this: - "Hey let's make classes n stuff" - "Oh and you should be able to make stuff to" - "Oooh dude let's get giant bosses in there" - "Hey let's make this shit, too." And then they just randomly mix it together and call it Guild Wars 2. Lol. No, no offense.
Another point: While I think Guild Wars 2 will be a decent grind game that I will love to play, I still think that there are some great flaws in it. And that is not only the problem with Guild Wars 2, but with most modern MMORPGs:
1. The battlesystem. Pressing 1 button over and over again while sometimes pressing 3 and 4 is called a "complex battle system with great opportunities." Let's just take Ragnarok Online, a game which got PvP patched into it because it wasn't the main point of the game at first. It became a huge mechanic fest because you had not only to "macromanage" with your items, you also had decent micro abilities with equipment switching, skill placement and preparation. Of course, it was limited, but I remember WoE sessions with battlemode activated where I came close to the APM I have to use in Starcraft 2 now.
Looking at Guild Wars 1(and 2), I barely see any movement in the fingers other than "123123123". It's the "1a" equivalent. There's no point in it, yet it is the most succesful way. People love it.
And what is worse: It's the players' fault. WoW had a nice battlesystem overall but because people wanted to have it easy they created complex macros and addons to solve this. They basically made their starcraft mmo into a 1a-random-rts-mmo.
2. The partysystem Okay, this point is actually a huge bonus for Guild Wars 2. The way they solved it is great, but I hope they won't f*** it up till the point it is abusable. For clarification: In Guild Wars 2 you just get into an event and get partied with everyone around in the event. Great move.
However, most MMORPGs punish you for making a group. You only get 40% of the xp, you have to do quests multiple times, sometimes you have to find completely different places; the loot gets rarer and worse etc. Ragnarok Online REWARDS you for groups, grants you bonus loot and xp(or was it just xp? Can't remember eveerything <.>). Guild Wars 2 will also reward you for grouping, even force you to group. That is awesome.
3. The economy. When you look at EVE online, it's an quite...exaggerated version of an economy & crafting. But in it's own system, it works. Another great example for this is Ragnarok Online. The economy basically is a playable feature put into a class. The basic crafting, which is not that big but it works, is also included within the merchant class-tree. And they get nice toys like the humunculus or the carts. It's just a small thing but I remember spending hours n hours interacting with people while trading, crafting and babbling.
4. The freedom and exploring the world. There is none. Exploring the world will end in just another texture. Even if you take games like EVE or Fallen Earth the game has an end, and after playing it the first time it is boring. Everything is a one time thing and you won't even be that surpirsed, because what else than another tree could there be if you are in a forest? If there was a cave, you already probably heard of it as an instance or so.
This leads me to the last point I want to talk about before I end this, because I won't really change anything but I hope I could help some people.
5. Instances I could say "Instances are another way of seperating people from each other", but Instances do even more. While they can create decent content that looks better than the usual grind, they usually give too high rewards. You are bascially forced to play them, even if you don't want to and just grind through the open world with all of your friends. This is another point for Guild Wars 2(if it's true), as you are not forced into the instances. Getting too high rewards from instances, that are usually BoP, kills player interaction even more and reduces it to a simple "DPS high enough? Build? Ok go." "Don't roll for twinks, main-only drops." Blargh. I'm not a great instance fan, but I have to admit that sometimes, if done properly they are great fun.
Okay, without further babbling about the topic, I want to answer your question with a small list. Not ordered, they all have their place:
EVE Online and Fallen Earth for the great persistent worlds and economy/crafting, also freedom in what you want to do with your character. (Fallen Earth P2P, not F2P.) Ultima Online most likely belongs here, too. Ragnarok Online, Dark Age of Camelot and Lineage 2. Even though I never really got into Lineage 2, it is great. Those 3 games have great PvE, great PvP(well ragnarok is a bit lame after a while but it has it's good sides.), reward groups all the way, are truly "massive" when it comes to multiplayer, don't make mistakes with the crafting and their economy and are just hella fun to play with your friends.
No, I'm not naming WoW here. If you could play WoW without all the add ons, macros and mixed in with more group-supporting ways to play, then 100times yes, but the current state is just too flawed.
Conclusion is the tl;dr.
On September 26 2011 11:33 Milkis wrote: i wanna play RO again
but it's not the same anymore sniff
RO2 looks like a failure too
seriously finding an MMORPG just with a lot of expandable content that's just a lot of *fun* farming items is ridiculously hard nowadays
every mmo is like in beta testing forever and ever ;(
RO2 looks like a failure, but RO didn't really lost it's feeling. It's weird to adjust, but I still get into it really quick.
On September 26 2011 17:10 KeksX wrote: tl;dr MMORPGs, in the modern way, are flawed. But it has been done right and Guild Wars 2, while having some flaws, could(but really just could, because it _could_ also turn out super bad..) be the next game that does it right. Also, Ragnarok Online owns, Dark of Camelot has one of the best PvP imho; It's simple to make good MMORPGs by just thinking of them as something bigger than just a mixture of features. + Show Spoiler +
Whenever I don't play Starcraft 2, I probably play any MMORPG I can find.
Here's a list of my favourites of all time with a short explanation as this is not my blog. Just a bit of background information about my experiences.
- Ragnarok Online. Played since late alpha, early beta. Was my first MMO ever and my first "real game" on the computer (got into it through my brother.). I also got my girlfriend into playing it and this is how I made her a gaming nerd. - Ultima Online. Do I have to explain this? - Dark Age of Camelot; since my brother stopped playing Ragnarok Online and I hadn't have internet access on my computer I pretty much had to play that. But I enjoyed it as f****. It was so good and it was also the first game where I encountered PvP. - Not an MMORPG, but CORPG, was Guild Wars. It was the first game where I played PvP really really hardcore, before that I was the PvE-Grind guy(and I still am.) - WoW. Yea, I have to admit that I have a WoW phase. It lasted only 3 months and was mostly due to my friends that wanted to play it. After 3 months I said "Guys, it's lame. I go back to play Ragnarok Online." - Aion. It lasted 1 months, korean version was fun but asa it came to EU/NA patches began to suck. - I also tried any other MMORPG that is out there including Rift, Age of Conan, Everquest etc(really everything including most of the F2P games.). I'm a hardcore gamer and I'm also a hardcore MMORPG fan. But most of these games suck so I never played for a long time.
And so I did, every few months or so I go back to play on my old Ragnarok Account. What can I say, that game is hella fun. I sometimes play other games again, too. But Ragnarok Online is definitely the one I play most often, just because it's so easy to get into. Pick a build, play it. Done.
Okay, now that you have enough background to know where I come from, I want to answer your questions.
What new MMORPGs are actually good?
Is my attitude towards MMORPGs not actually being a game and more of an overscheduled timesink accurate?
I'd like to answer the second one first.
Yes, every MMORPG is a grind. Face it: The tasks you do in an MMORPG, you do them all over again everytime. You complete a quest, get a new one, kill monsters, complete a quest, get a new one etc etc. Sometimes you even don't get a quest. But after all it is all about killing monsters and doing other stuff like crafting or PvP.
Most people say "Grinding sucks, I want a good MMORPG without grinding" This is a common misunderstanding that most people have. Because without grinding, you wouldn't even have stuff to do in an MMORPG. Grinding, in this case, is nothing bad, but the only way to describe what you actually do.
Here's my small definition portion of grinding: - Mob Grinding. It's my favourite. You get a couple of friends, pick your favourite classes and then go mash the f*** out of monsters for hours while listening to music/teamspeak or whatever. It can be sooo good, especially in games like Ragnarok Online. The doing-it-alone version of this can be fun, too, but I recommend to do it with friends. This is the oldschool way and is not really done in most new MMORPGs. - Quest Grinding. This is most fun doing alone just because of the way it works. You get all your quests in a certain area and complete them one by one. Most likely you'll just have to kill mobs so you just grind some mobs, but never too much so that you just complete the quest and go. Until you don't have quests left or you're in a new area. This is the modern way of grind. - Hybrid Grinding: While you still "grind your quests", you kill every mob you can find. If respawn timings are properly, you will eventually get twice the amount of xp while only losing like 50% of the time.
What I personally find unacceptable for an MMORPG is the "quest only" policy. In a game like World Of Warcraft, which basically has a good system, like the battlesystem where you really have to think about what you do(at least when you're using no add ons), there's always no fun into the grind. You just have to questgrind all day until you get into an instance and you cross your fingers you farmed enough to have good enough equipment to get into good groups. Otherwise, you have to play with randoms. All. the. time.
Like you said, those games don't really support groups. In fact, they hurt you. If you get a group you can't do all the same quests, at least not if you didn't start at the same time and only play when the others are online, too. Otherwise, you'll always have to wait or do stuff more than one time and kill more monsters because you get less XP.
Another annoying point about most MMORPGs is that the PvP doesn't have a point. Like, for real; it's senseless. Stupid button mashing all over the place. If you take Lineage 2, PvP was a risk. It was a way to claim political power and to protect it. It was a way to settle issues and it was also a way of take advantage over something. It always had impact and a meaning if you killed somebody, at least once you get into an alliance. Which you did, otherwise you'd be dead.
Next, the crafting and economy. Whats the point of it? Imagine Aion. Lol, what senseless moneysink, it was like they wanted to support the gold farmers. Seriously? 5 Million for a CHANCE of getting a decent weapon? REALLY? I only have 2 Million, I need to farm 3 weeks for a CHANCE!? And then I don't even get to sell it if I want to use it first!? REALLY? Not only are bound items crap, because they kill the economy, but also no item duration kills crafting in it's very own way. Everyone can craft, everyone can make their stuff, why even bother leveling this shit up? Oh wait, I see, you have to get rid of the MUDflation so we have to buy this shit. Okay.
I imagine most modern MMORPGs like this: - "Hey let's make classes n stuff" - "Oh and you should be able to make stuff to" - "Oooh dude let's get giant bosses in there" - "Hey let's make this shit, too." And then they just randomly mix it together and call it Guild Wars 2. Lol. No, no offense.
Another point: While I think Guild Wars 2 will be a decent grind game that I will love to play, I still think that there are some great flaws in it. And that is not only the problem with Guild Wars 2, but with most modern MMORPGs:
1. The battlesystem. Pressing 1 button over and over again while sometimes pressing 3 and 4 is called a "complex battle system with great opportunities." Let's just take Ragnarok Online, a game which got PvP patched into it because it wasn't the main point of the game at first. It became a huge mechanic fest because you had not only to "macromanage" with your items, you also had decent micro abilities with equipment switching, skill placement and preparation. Of course, it was limited, but I remember WoE sessions with battlemode activated where I came close to the APM I have to use in Starcraft 2 now.
Looking at Guild Wars 1(and 2), I barely see any movement in the fingers other than "123123123". It's the "1a" equivalent. There's no point in it, yet it is the most succesful way. People love it.
And what is worse: It's the players' fault. WoW had a nice battlesystem overall but because people wanted to have it easy they created complex macros and addons to solve this. They basically made their starcraft mmo into a 1a-random-rts-mmo.
2. The partysystem Okay, this point is actually a huge bonus for Guild Wars 2. The way they solved it is great, but I hope they won't f*** it up till the point it is abusable. For clarification: In Guild Wars 2 you just get into an event and get partied with everyone around in the event. Great move.
However, most MMORPGs punish you for making a group. You only get 40% of the xp, you have to do quests multiple times, sometimes you have to find completely different places; the loot gets rarer and worse etc. Ragnarok Online REWARDS you for groups, grants you bonus loot and xp(or was it just xp? Can't remember eveerything <.>). Guild Wars 2 will also reward you for grouping, even force you to group. That is awesome.
3. The economy. When you look at EVE online, it's an quite...exaggerated version of an economy & crafting. But in it's own system, it works. Another great example for this is Ragnarok Online. The economy basically is a playable feature put into a class. The basic crafting, which is not that big but it works, is also included within the merchant class-tree. And they get nice toys like the humunculus or the carts. It's just a small thing but I remember spending hours n hours interacting with people while trading, crafting and babbling.
4. The freedom and exploring the world. There is none. Exploring the world will end in just another texture. Even if you take games like EVE or Fallen Earth the game has an end, and after playing it the first time it is boring. Everything is a one time thing and you won't even be that surpirsed, because what else than another tree could there be if you are in a forest? If there was a cave, you already probably heard of it as an instance or so.
This leads me to the last point I want to talk about before I end this, because I won't really change anything but I hope I could help some people.
5. Instances I could say "Instances are another way of seperating people from each other", but Instances do even more. While they can create decent content that looks better than the usual grind, they usually give too high rewards. You are bascially forced to play them, even if you don't want to and just grind through the open world with all of your friends. This is another point for Guild Wars 2(if it's true), as you are not forced into the instances. Getting too high rewards from instances, that are usually BoP, kills player interaction even more and reduces it to a simple "DPS high enough? Build? Ok go." "Don't roll for twinks, main-only drops." Blargh. I'm not a great instance fan, but I have to admit that sometimes, if done properly they are great fun.
Okay, without further babbling about the topic, I want to answer your question with a small list. Not ordered, they all have their place:
EVE Online and Fallen Earth for the great persistent worlds and economy/crafting, also freedom in what you want to do with your character. (Fallen Earth P2P, not F2P.) Ultima Online most likely belongs here, too. Ragnarok Online, Dark Age of Camelot and Lineage 2. Even though I never really got into Lineage 2, it is great. Those 3 games have great PvE, great PvP(well ragnarok is a bit lame after a while but it has it's good sides.), reward groups all the way, are truly "massive" when it comes to multiplayer, don't make mistakes with the crafting and their economy and are just hella fun to play with your friends.
No, I'm not naming WoW here. If you could play WoW without all the add ons, macros and mixed in with more group-supporting ways to play, then 100times yes, but the current state is just too flawed.
On September 26 2011 11:33 Milkis wrote: i wanna play RO again
but it's not the same anymore sniff
RO2 looks like a failure too
seriously finding an MMORPG just with a lot of expandable content that's just a lot of *fun* farming items is ridiculously hard nowadays
every mmo is like in beta testing forever and ever ;(
RO2 looks like a failure, but RO didn't really lost it's feeling. It's weird to adjust, but I still get into it really quick.
I disagree with you saying "MMORPGs only work with grinding". Guild Wars had a very small amount of quests compared to e.g. WoW and after you reached level 20, you didn't have to do any side quests anymore. After that it was 100% story, 0% grinding. Even without sidequests, you could get everything you needed just by following the story, there was never a need to go out and kill stuff just for the sake of EP.
Well, admittedly this changed with Nightfall where they introduced grinding, but that was also the time most people i knew in that game switched to pure PvP (GvG).
About my MMO history: Personally i started MMOs with Guild Wars, which i played for almost 5 years, though 4 years were almost only GvGs with small PvE breaks whenever an expansion was released. In my opinion it's still the best MMO just for how well the story is integrated into the game.
I played WoW shortly after the release of the burning crusade (IIRC, first add-on) for 2-3 month until level 40 and i still didn't know what the story was all about. As far as i noticed, there wasn't even any story to speak of. People said "Yeah it's there, you just have to read carefully and it only really starts with max level"... I read everything and still didn't notice a story and i don't want to play half a year until i can start having fun.
After GW and the short WoW interlude i switched to Lord of the Rings Online (pre-Moria add-on) and story wise, it's a lot better than WoW, mostly because of the instanced story quests that gave the developers the freedom to add a lot more story content into the game. From the first Level on, you were a part of a story. Sadly, it contained a lot more grinding than i liked (less than WoW though), but i managed to endure it because the story was interesting enough. The game went downhill with Moria which became a pure grind-fest for legendary weapons. Also: The "appearance item" system was nice, allowing you to look however you want, even if the real items you wear look hideous.
Aion... Well... "Hey, you are now an angel-like half-god... oh, and you are still weak enough to die to some random wolves". Also, Grind, Grind, Grind. Endured it for a month, gave up at level 20-something. Still don't know what the story is about. Something with evil demons or so.
Tried a little Eve Online, got me a nice cruiser and then got bored after a few days because it's the very definition of "Grind".
Now i'm waiting for The Old Republic and GW2, though i will probably be very disappointed. The public quest system of GW2 doesn't sound like it offers a good way to tell a story and TOR looks like any other MMO, "but now with Jedis!".
For me the RPG part is a lot more important than the MMO part. If a game doesn't tell a story in a good way, i don't care about the game. I hate grinding and farming. Sadly, "open world" MMOs with almost exclusively high-level instances are now the standard, eventhough it prevents almost all story telling.
In summary: I still think GW is the best MMORPG (or if you want, CORPG) currently, followed by LotRO (pre-moria). Then there is a lot of nothing until we reach the other MMOs like WoW which are all basically the same crap. However, i have to admit that i didn't play a lot of MMOs (basically just the above mentioned), so i might not be the best to judge it.
EDIT: I nearly forgot a thing i hate in most MMOs:
Travel! In many MMOs like WoW, Aion or even LotRO you seem to spend half your time travelling to places. It's annoying me. It's a simple scheme to get more money as it makes you progress more slowly, resulting in more money from the monthly payments. Guild Wars: 2-3 klicks and you are (almost) whereever you want to be. No "pay 10 silver, wait for what feels like half an hour without being able to do anything else in game and you finally reach your destination. Oh, look at those fancy areas we created that you don't want to visit anyways but that look cool.".
On September 26 2011 18:10 Morfildur wrote: I disagree with you saying "MMORPGs only work with grinding". Guild Wars had a very small amount of quests compared to e.g. WoW and after you reached level 20, you didn't have to do any side quests anymore. After that it was 100% story, 0% grinding. Even without sidequests, you could get everything you needed just by following the story, there was never a need to go out and kill stuff just for the sake of EP.
Well, admittedly this changed with Nightfall where they introduced grinding, but that was also the time most people i knew in that game switched to pure PvP (GvG).
Fair point and I completely agree, but it's really stretching the term MMORPG to call Guild Wars one. And even there it all comes down to the same stuff over and over again, you end up killing monsters for, only the reason changes.
That's funny. A bit of a grind. Gosh you are such a joker. It's not like it took over a week of grinding to get from 98-99 normal, if you played without sleeping. Of a month to get from 98->99 Trans class. Unless you played on a private server. I played iRO, kRO, and jRO for over 7 years. For 3 years straight AA clan was the top clan only because I had found two GTB cards by waking up every day on the minute when GTB spawned for my entire High School Summer Vacation.
Ragnarok Online is the epitome of Korean MMO, the grind is fucking hilariously long, the items dropped at less .0000001% for the rarest items such as GTB, and the game took up your SOUL.
Used to play WoW a lot. It was really fun in Burning Crusade...I had a lot of fun raiding. Then stuff got easier than it already was. I was in the best Alliance guild on Arthas and we would just down everything so fast. I lost interest when the awful Ulduar came out. Probably should of stopped before but I always wished it would get better.
It was also one of the only games where levelling as a group was beneficial, a game which other MMOs like WoW, MapleStory etc haven't quite sussed out yet.
Tried FFXI for a while. It sure was fun to be able to level in a party. Oh wait, that was the only way you could level. At level 12 you needed a tank, a healer, and good DPS who all knew how aggro worked. It took a long time to find a group, then you had to walk 30 minutes to find a leveling spot, then the fun began. Would of been really fun if most groups were good, but they'd mostly leave and you'd be stuck as a white mage in the middle of the desert with monsters your level but that you can't fight...anyways. It's good to have viable group leveling option, but when you don't have the option of leveling alone because of the turtle pace even at slow levels, it sucks. I never made to the level cap because of this. It was so infuriating to wait an hour to find a group then use the 30 minutes of time I had left to level up.
Also, the UI is one of the worst I've ever seen. It's like if this MMO was free.
Not worth the price at all.
Edit:
Ragnarok Online is the epitome of Korean MMO, the grind is fucking hilariously long, the items dropped at less .0000001% for the rarest items such as GTB, and the game took up your SOUL.
YOUR.
SOUL.
I lol'd. It's entirely true. Can't say I played as much as you though...
OP, it sounds like you kind of sucked at WoW and were a bad/annoying guild member. Anyone saying "I didn't do anything wrong" and having similar problems with subsequent guilds is probably doing something wrong.
What bothers me is that most MMOGs don't have the possibility to distribute stat points. Balancing STR, AGI, INT etc etc is where half the fun lies :/ This way, you can also further personalize your character.
On September 26 2011 19:29 Kaal wrote:That's funny. A bit of a grind. Gosh you are such a joker. It's not like it took over a week of grinding to get from 98-99 normal, if you played without sleeping. Of a month to get from 98->99 Trans class. Unless you played on a private server. I played iRO, kRO, and jRO for over 7 years. For 3 years straight AA clan was the top clan only because I had found two GTB cards by waking up every day on the minute when GTB spawned for my entire High School Summer Vacation.
You could do that, if you wanted to, or you could just play for fun and eventually get trans. 99 in a few months. MMORPGs were never about getting max lvl ASAP. Well, at least they used to not be like that. I mean, just look at games like Rift or TERA. Not even a week for max lvl, seriously?
On September 26 2011 11:41 Adebisi wrote: I played Lineage 2 extremely hardcore. Super fun game but HUGE timesink, basically the worst grind of any MMORPG released in the western world, unfortunately that's what made the game good, because it had REAL PvP, and it meant something when you died. It bothers me so much when dying means nothing, much less you can't even talk to your opponents ... (cough wow). The open political system just made the game so fun. Unfortunately it was so time consuming, it got to a point where I just had to say no more. lol.
Either way, had tons of fun, if no one knows anything about Lineage 2, my guild had some pretty cool fraps movies with really nice production value. Feel free to take a peak.
Is my attitude towards MMORPGs not actually being a game and more of an overscheduled timesink accurate?
Pretty much, the problem with MMORPGs is casual friendly games with no grind are just meaningless, and a real grind means... you basically can't have a life outside the game, but the game can be really fun, and you will meet tons of awesome people, even if you're all somewhat demented in one way or another from sitting behind a computer too long.
That was an awesome video, thank you. Wish they still made games like that.
I tell people that now-a-days I don't have time to play games and that I wasted so much time on WoW in the past, when really all I want is more time to waste and less responsibility IRL.
On September 26 2011 20:31 Lucumo wrote: What bothers me is that most MMOGs don't have the possibility to distribute stat points. Balancing STR, AGI, INT etc etc is where half the fun lies :/ This way, you can also further personalize your character.
I actually don't like it if you have to distribute stat points in MMOs unless there is a way to re-distribute them. Normal MMOs don't take that much time, so if you messed up due to a lack of knowledge, you just create a new character and then you're fine. In MMOs, if you were clueless the first 10 levels because you were just goofing around trying things and it ends up messing up the late game it's a game breaking flaw imho. I'm afraid of GW2 messing it up :-/
However, if the stat points can be redistributed, it's a nice mechanic and there is nothing i have against it.
On September 26 2011 19:29 Kaal wrote:That's funny. A bit of a grind. Gosh you are such a joker. It's not like it took over a week of grinding to get from 98-99 normal, if you played without sleeping. Of a month to get from 98->99 Trans class. Unless you played on a private server. I played iRO, kRO, and jRO for over 7 years. For 3 years straight AA clan was the top clan only because I had found two GTB cards by waking up every day on the minute when GTB spawned for my entire High School Summer Vacation.
You could do that, if you wanted to, or you could just play for fun and eventually get trans. 99 in a few months. MMORPGs were never about getting max lvl ASAP. Well, at least they used to not be like that. I mean, just look at games like Rift or TERA. Not even a week for max lvl, seriously?
And GTB is banned from most servers anyway
It's impossible to get trans 99 in a few months on a licensed server if you play casually. Well, before they raised the exp/drop rates it was.
On September 26 2011 19:29 Kaal wrote:That's funny. A bit of a grind. Gosh you are such a joker. It's not like it took over a week of grinding to get from 98-99 normal, if you played without sleeping. Of a month to get from 98->99 Trans class. Unless you played on a private server. I played iRO, kRO, and jRO for over 7 years. For 3 years straight AA clan was the top clan only because I had found two GTB cards by waking up every day on the minute when GTB spawned for my entire High School Summer Vacation.
You could do that, if you wanted to, or you could just play for fun and eventually get trans. 99 in a few months. MMORPGs were never about getting max lvl ASAP. Well, at least they used to not be like that. I mean, just look at games like Rift or TERA. Not even a week for max lvl, seriously?
And GTB is banned from most servers anyway
It's impossible to get trans 99 in a few months on a licensed server if you play casually. Well, before they raised the exp/drop rates it was.
Well tbh on the items you already have. If you start from scratch it's hard, but if you already have established equipment it's really not hard to play a few hours a week and get trans 99 in a few months. euRO XP Rates, which were 1.0 IIRC.
fRO might be way easier.... buuuuuut anyway, we are going away from the topic ^^
On September 26 2011 20:31 Lucumo wrote: What bothers me is that most MMOGs don't have the possibility to distribute stat points. Balancing STR, AGI, INT etc etc is where half the fun lies :/ This way, you can also further personalize your character.
I actually don't like it if you have to distribute stat points in MMOs unless there is a way to re-distribute them. Normal MMOs don't take that much time, so if you messed up due to a lack of knowledge, you just create a new character and then you're fine. In MMOs, if you were clueless the first 10 levels because you were just goofing around trying things and it ends up messing up the late game it's a game breaking flaw imho. I'm afraid of GW2 messing it up :-/
However, if the stat points can be redistributed, it's a nice mechanic and there is nothing i have against it.
Hm, f2p MMOGs have cash shops + you almost always get such an item from a quest for free. So, screwing up one time is not that bad. Also, it's unlikely that only 10 levels will mess everything up. And don't forget that "lack of knowledge" is the person's fault. Before open beta starts, there are always guides and builds in the forum. Being lazy or a casual player is not a good excuse...which, by the way, brings me to another point: Need exp reduction when you die. Otherwise, it's way too casual-friendly and annoying -_-
That's funny. A bit of a grind. Gosh you are such a joker. It's not like it took over a week of grinding to get from 98-99 normal, if you played without sleeping. Of a month to get from 98->99 Trans class. Unless you played on a private server. I played iRO, kRO, and jRO for over 7 years. For 3 years straight AA clan was the top clan only because I had found two GTB cards by waking up every day on the minute when GTB spawned for my entire High School Summer Vacation.
Ragnarok Online is the epitome of Korean MMO, the grind is fucking hilariously long, the items dropped at less .0000001% for the rarest items such as GTB, and the game took up your SOUL.
YOUR.
SOUL.
gtb super ez mode to camp though. its not even that useful when you look at it either :p
Nice blog, MMO's are awesome not only because of the game-related content and rewards, but because of the community. You don't get the sense of a strong community elsewhere - MMO's really nail that into the game with dungeons and bosses which will require a lot of cooperation and teamwork. Sorry to hear that you had a tough time with all the guilds, but I think it probably had to do more with your attitude towards the game and the various communities... as long as you find an English-speaking non-foreign (was tempted to list out the nationalities here but I don't want to look racist) guild, it should have been easy enough to settle.
I played various MMO's throughout my teenage years but the first serious MMO I got into was Cabal Online (NA version). Loved the flashy graphics and the combo system (which required you to actually time your attacks and plan out your combo with more than one skill). PvP was pretty one-dimensional (break the other guy's combo while maintaining yours) but that had a huge skill spectrum, and the top PvPers were not only the best geared (obviously) but also the most skilled. In other words, even if your gear wasn't elite top tier, you could get away with somewhat top tier gear and really good dash/fade combo-ing. Anyways, with all the details put aside, I put a good 2-3 years into that game, and stuck with one guild the entire time. Eventually got promoted to guild officer and organized regular boss raids before I quit for good to save my free-falling GPA. Details for any other Cabal players (or former players), I was a level 159 FB when I quit (lvl cap was 170, sigh).
After Cabal, I took full-year break from MMO's until I picked up MapleStory (lol thanks TL) this year in January. As you mentioned in the OP, my mind was blown. Big Bang made this game actually a playable game. My back-in-2005 characters were basically obsolete. Started fresh with the great bunch of TLers here, and I'm still there =) At this point the game's not really about achieving top damage status, it's more about just hanging out with fellow TLers, wasting time, doing a boss or two, and talking about how imba 1-1-1 is (without getting banned on TL, haha!).
I suppose I'll try out D3 when public beta is released, but I'm more hyped for Cabal 2... too bad they announced it back in March and never updated ever since. I hope ESTSoft has enough money to plow through and give us a release date at the least.
On September 26 2011 10:34 Torte de Lini wrote: Where the fuck is Ragnarok Online?
Seriously, how can you miss that? It's great animations, absolutely gorgeous and memorable soundtrack, funny creatures and decent quests.
A bit of a grind? Yeah, I guess. But the PVP was awesome [WOE], the different classes were a nice twist (dancer, monk, etc.) tier classes.
My God, the card system and classic leveling?
Classic. I'd go back in an instant.
I never played it but I heard about it. I did play a few other MMORPGs I didn't mention like:
PristonTale - This was before WoW actually, but me and my bro stopped playing it when it turned pay to play.
Knight Online - It was okay. There wasn't really much point to it and it was confusing. The ironic thing is that when I was playing, it was supposedly a F2P game but you couldn't get on a server because it was over capacity without subscribing.
Fly For Fun - Felt kinda dull. Level 15 turned from spamming 1 ability to spamming 2 abilities, and level 20 is like HORRAY I CAN FINALLY FLY....and 5 minutes later getting bored because there's no content apart from grinding mobs that did nothing but attack you.
Dofus/Wakfu - The most boring game I had ever played, and yes, I am listing them both as one game because they are basically the same near identical game.
Warhammer Online - I played during the Endless Trial. Jesus Christ that game was near death... There was virtually nobody online
FYI I absolutely loved Dofus until the UK only server I played on died and all the cool people that I knew got replaced by 10,000 obnoxious polish kids.
Also, all MMOs are boring as far as game mechanics go, but they have a strong social element which keeps them interesting. How good an MMO is just depends on how good the social element is.
I'm quite sure my RuneScape is 7 or 8 years old, and I'm not going to lie, I'm liking it now Bought member last month and I really enjoyed all the new content. I'm quite sure I will eventually lose interest again though, after the excitement of being a member fades.
Also, MapleStory. Or MapleSEA rather. Cassiopeia is the best world there, easily, and the Big Bang patch made it rather playable again. However, the community now is just so horribad that I went "fuck it" and went back to DotA.
I'm quite sure I acquired SC2 at around that time too.
MU Online. Not sure how many of you have heard of it, but I liked it a lot before K2 or whatever acquired Webzen. I'm quite sure this is the only MMORPG where I've PvPed in, although my character was pathetic and often preyed on players 1/3 my level.
On September 26 2011 23:06 DoNotDisturb wrote: I'm quite sure my RuneScape is 7 or 8 years old, and I'm not going to lie, I'm liking it now Bought member last month and I really enjoyed all the new content. I'm quite sure I will eventually lose interest again though, after the excitement of being a member fades.
You'll probably lose interest within a few months or a year. I certainly did.
Plus the grind in Runescape turns from "Oh, this is quite bearable" to "Holy shit" as you realise that 98 - 99 takes millions of experience points to obtain, and probably a few weeks of just clicking.
Also, MapleStory. Or MapleSEA rather. Cassiopeia is the best world there, easily, and the Big Bang patch made it rather playable again.
I play on Global. The community isn't that bad but the Big Bang update really improved the game to turn from your typical Korean grindfest to an actual decent MMO. I remember it taking 7 hours of constant grinding to get from level 25 to 26 before, but now it's more like half an hour.
However, if I have several criticisms of Nexon and MapleStory, it's this:
Region segregation - Now, I cannot invite any of my friends to play on GMS because Global is basically North American these days. Despite the fact that Global has updates earlier and speaks english (sort of like SEA does), I cannot play on there because they restricted new signups. It reminds me of the controversy of when they opened up the Hong Kong/Macau version and outright geoblocked all HK/Macau residents from the Global version, basically implying that they should fuck off and start anew (basically losing all the NX Cash and characters they invested in), whilst restricting them to a Chinese only, inferior (very behind in terms of updates) version of the game. MapleEurope is basically MapleGlobal but a year behind (no Chaos and certainly no Ascension.) Should it be fair that I miss out on a lot of content that they're willingly providing for free, funded by microtransactions because I wasn't born in the United States or Canada? No. As somebody who hates geoblocking, this grinds my fucking gears.
Terrible customer support. I continually see threads on the GMS forums complaining about their support. Furthermore, getting a technical response from them is like trying to force down a brick wall using just a paintbrush and a small jar of enamel paint. This also goes back to the era when the game got vac hacked to fucking oblivion. You literally couldn't level anywhere because there were mobs being sucked into a certain point whilst some douche autoattacked day and night, probably using a bot.
The game client is buggy. Having played it lately on Windows 7, I can report occasional full system crashes and a commonly occuring bug where your keyboard gets locked out, and you have to reactivate it either by unplugging it and plugging it back in, or restarting your computer. Even playing before the Big Bang update on Windows XP, I noticed many bugs such as randomly floating to the top left of the map, disconnecting every 2 minutes etc.
Being forced to launch your game from the game's website as opposed to the executible that is on your HDD (that redirects me to the MapleStory website to launch the game), true Korean MMO style is just stupid. I noticed a lot of Korean MMOs do this and I cannot see any logical reason why MapleStory had to enforce this method of launching the game. I can only think of two Western games that do this (one of which is browser based anyway) and that is Quake Live and Battlefield Heroes. Why did Nexon have to switch to this system? It's a pain in the ass especially since the website doesn't remember logins.
However, the community now is just so horribad that I went "fuck it" and went back to DotA.
I had some bad times with DotA, namely having to deal with assholes who will just flame you, call you a feeder and boot/banlist you from a game because you didn't follow the stereotypical item path and get Boots of Speed followed by Buriza.
The community is so newbie unfriendly that I literally avoided DotA Allstars maps on battle.net, which is basically 95% of all custom games.
MU Online. Not sure how many of you have heard of it, but I liked it a lot before K2 or whatever acquired Webzen. I'm quite sure this is the only MMORPG where I've PvPed in, although my character was pathetic and often preyed on players 1/3 my level.
Never really touched that game, had a friend who did and he never went near it again.
On September 26 2011 11:41 Adebisi wrote: I played Lineage 2 extremely hardcore. Super fun game but HUGE timesink, basically the worst grind of any MMORPG released in the western world, unfortunately that's what made the game good, because it had REAL PvP, and it meant something when you died. It bothers me so much when dying means nothing, much less you can't even talk to your opponents ... (cough wow). The open political system just made the game so fun. Unfortunately it was so time consuming, it got to a point where I just had to say no more. lol.
Either way, had tons of fun, if no one knows anything about Lineage 2, my guild had some pretty cool fraps movies with really nice production value. Feel free to take a peak.
Is my attitude towards MMORPGs not actually being a game and more of an overscheduled timesink accurate?
Pretty much, the problem with MMORPGs is casual friendly games with no grind are just meaningless, and a real grind means... you basically can't have a life outside the game, but the game can be really fun, and you will meet tons of awesome people, even if you're all somewhat demented in one way or another from sitting behind a computer too long.
That was an awesome video, thank you. Wish they still made games like that.
Glad you like it . Lots more on YouTube just look up Uprising if you're interested.
Its cool a lot of people bringing up Warhammer, I played on Dark Crag and we dominated pretty hard in terms of Alliance (there was huge zerg of Horde, everyone played Horde lol) but the game just lagged out in every big castle siege, I remember it would always crash as soon as the real mass PvP started, so much potential in that game :[. Warhammer is actually the PERFECT universe for an MMORPG imo. Although I wish there was more politics and even the possibility of infighting.
Back in 2002? or 2003 I started playing Ragnarok Online with a bunch of friends while it was in beta and shortly after went p2p. (iRO) It was fun playing with rl friends but super grindy. I played for something like 8 or 9 months until all my rl friends stopped playing.
Shortly after a friend talked me into buying ffxi. It was fun to party when you found one but really everything just took an unreasonably long amount of time to do so I quit after 1 or 2 months I think.
Tried some other free ones like ragnarok private servers, Cabal Online, Two Moons I think another was called but I didn't find any I liked.
Stopped for a looooong time once I found bw proscene (2006) until 2 months ago. 1 of my rl friends started playing iRO again and wanted me to play with him. Thinking I would get bored of it within a week I put it off but when I looked it up and realized that iRO was f2p now I decided I'd give it a shot.
I have to say it's wayyyy better than before. Renewal made it a lot easier to level. There are actually quests in the game now (Quests that can help you level all the way from 1-99 are permanent. Also easy equipment quests for decent newbie gear, I went from 1-99 trans in it fairly easily.) A lot of events (every few weeks there is 2x exp or 2x drops) and different quests for new headgears or whatever. Also they have been doing turn in events where you have to kill certain monsters for a quest every week (also makes it a lot easier to level and generally people make parties for doing these, so you get to meet people.)
They have a system now where you can pay like $7/month for "VIP" which has a bunch of bonuses (1.5x exp/1.5x drop/ losing less exp when you die/ etc...) and there is also items you can buy for $ (none of them are like god gears or anything but there are some upper end gears)
I haven't tried woe yet (doesn't interest me) so I can't comment on that.
In terms of grinding, I went from 1-99 trans in like.. a month or so? playing like 2 hours a day average as a knight. Once you get to like 90+ trans it slows down a lot but that's when the turn in events are so it's not so bad. Grinding to find certain items can take a while but it's not too bad unless you are looking for mvp cards or something. 3rd jobs all seem pretty cool to me and once you get to there you are rarely soloing unless you are hunting for items or whatever.
I never thought I'd actually get back into an mmo but I did -.-
On September 27 2011 17:32 ii.blitzkrieg wrote: I've tried a few over the years.
Back in 2002? or 2003 I started playing Ragnarok Online with a bunch of friends while it was in beta and shortly after went p2p. (iRO) It was fun playing with rl friends but super grindy. I played for something like 8 or 9 months until all my rl friends stopped playing.
Shortly after a friend talked me into buying ffxi. It was fun to party when you found one but really everything just took an unreasonably long amount of time to do so I quit after 1 or 2 months I think.
Tried some other free ones like ragnarok private servers, Cabal Online, Two Moons I think another was called but I didn't find any I liked.
Stopped for a looooong time once I found bw proscene (2006) until 2 months ago. 1 of my rl friends started playing iRO again and wanted me to play with him. Thinking I would get bored of it within a week I put it off but when I looked it up and realized that iRO was f2p now I decided I'd give it a shot.
I have to say it's wayyyy better than before. Renewal made it a lot easier to level. There are actually quests in the game now (Quests that can help you level all the way from 1-99 are permanent. Also easy equipment quests for decent newbie gear, I went from 1-99 trans in it fairly easily.) A lot of events (every few weeks there is 2x exp or 2x drops) and different quests for new headgears or whatever. Also they have been doing turn in events where you have to kill certain monsters for a quest every week (also makes it a lot easier to level and generally people make parties for doing these, so you get to meet people.)
They have a system now where you can pay like $7/month for "VIP" which has a bunch of bonuses (1.5x exp/1.5x drop/ losing less exp when you die/ etc...) and there is also items you can buy for $ (none of them are like god gears or anything but there are some upper end gears)
I haven't tried woe yet (doesn't interest me) so I can't comment on that.
In terms of grinding, I went from 1-99 trans in like.. a month or so? playing like 2 hours a day average as a knight. Once you get to like 90+ trans it slows down a lot but that's when the turn in events are so it's not so bad. Grinding to find certain items can take a while but it's not too bad unless you are looking for mvp cards or something. 3rd jobs all seem pretty cool to me and once you get to there you are rarely soloing unless you are hunting for items or whatever.
I never thought I'd actually get back into an mmo but I did -.-
I'm tempted to try out RO, but I have a question.
1. Have they geoblocked Europeans from signing up to iRO? Because I checked out the European website and it was badly designed. Basically, the first language that came up was French, I switched the language to English, I checked an English section of the website to find out the language auto-switched back to French. Some of the menus didn't get translated and there clearly wasn't a working English option for some of the pages.
2. How far behind is Europe in terms of updates? If it's really far behind (I'm talking Europe MapleStory behind then I won't bother.
On September 27 2011 17:32 ii.blitzkrieg wrote: I've tried a few over the years.
Back in 2002? or 2003 I started playing Ragnarok Online with a bunch of friends while it was in beta and shortly after went p2p. (iRO) It was fun playing with rl friends but super grindy. I played for something like 8 or 9 months until all my rl friends stopped playing.
Shortly after a friend talked me into buying ffxi. It was fun to party when you found one but really everything just took an unreasonably long amount of time to do so I quit after 1 or 2 months I think.
Tried some other free ones like ragnarok private servers, Cabal Online, Two Moons I think another was called but I didn't find any I liked.
Stopped for a looooong time once I found bw proscene (2006) until 2 months ago. 1 of my rl friends started playing iRO again and wanted me to play with him. Thinking I would get bored of it within a week I put it off but when I looked it up and realized that iRO was f2p now I decided I'd give it a shot.
I have to say it's wayyyy better than before. Renewal made it a lot easier to level. There are actually quests in the game now (Quests that can help you level all the way from 1-99 are permanent. Also easy equipment quests for decent newbie gear, I went from 1-99 trans in it fairly easily.) A lot of events (every few weeks there is 2x exp or 2x drops) and different quests for new headgears or whatever. Also they have been doing turn in events where you have to kill certain monsters for a quest every week (also makes it a lot easier to level and generally people make parties for doing these, so you get to meet people.)
They have a system now where you can pay like $7/month for "VIP" which has a bunch of bonuses (1.5x exp/1.5x drop/ losing less exp when you die/ etc...) and there is also items you can buy for $ (none of them are like god gears or anything but there are some upper end gears)
I haven't tried woe yet (doesn't interest me) so I can't comment on that.
In terms of grinding, I went from 1-99 trans in like.. a month or so? playing like 2 hours a day average as a knight. Once you get to like 90+ trans it slows down a lot but that's when the turn in events are so it's not so bad. Grinding to find certain items can take a while but it's not too bad unless you are looking for mvp cards or something. 3rd jobs all seem pretty cool to me and once you get to there you are rarely soloing unless you are hunting for items or whatever.
I never thought I'd actually get back into an mmo but I did -.-
I'm tempted to try out RO, but I have a question.
1. Have they geoblocked Europeans from signing up to iRO? Because I checked out the European website and it was badly designed. Basically, the first language that came up was French, I switched the language to English, I checked an English section of the website to find out the language auto-switched back to French.
2. How far behind is Europe in terms of updates?
Honestly, you should just play on kRO, jRO or a private server. iRO has a bad, baaaaad reputation for customer support, service updates, etc. It was behind about a year on updates when I started, and quit, playing. Most PServers are up to date and near the same population. Like uhhh, the one TL recently tried playing on, LuminaRO was pretty decent.
Also whoever said GTB was bad, it used to be fucking godlike, because you were immune to all HOSTILE magic, then they changed it to all magic so it wasnt as good. But you could still spam whites in WoE so it was still pretty freaking good.
Ultima Online was my first and final MMORPG and it was great, i like the human aspect of the game since you could battle all sorts of animals, beasts or monsters but everyone was a human hehe!
Loved the magic aspect of the game and yes it was a huge timesink much like for instance travian. Travian you only use your browser but it's very addictive and time consuming.
I left UO and travian and won't pick up any game like that ever.. or so i hope ;D
On September 27 2011 17:32 ii.blitzkrieg wrote: I've tried a few over the years.
Back in 2002? or 2003 I started playing Ragnarok Online with a bunch of friends while it was in beta and shortly after went p2p. (iRO) It was fun playing with rl friends but super grindy. I played for something like 8 or 9 months until all my rl friends stopped playing.
Shortly after a friend talked me into buying ffxi. It was fun to party when you found one but really everything just took an unreasonably long amount of time to do so I quit after 1 or 2 months I think.
Tried some other free ones like ragnarok private servers, Cabal Online, Two Moons I think another was called but I didn't find any I liked.
Stopped for a looooong time once I found bw proscene (2006) until 2 months ago. 1 of my rl friends started playing iRO again and wanted me to play with him. Thinking I would get bored of it within a week I put it off but when I looked it up and realized that iRO was f2p now I decided I'd give it a shot.
I have to say it's wayyyy better than before. Renewal made it a lot easier to level. There are actually quests in the game now (Quests that can help you level all the way from 1-99 are permanent. Also easy equipment quests for decent newbie gear, I went from 1-99 trans in it fairly easily.) A lot of events (every few weeks there is 2x exp or 2x drops) and different quests for new headgears or whatever. Also they have been doing turn in events where you have to kill certain monsters for a quest every week (also makes it a lot easier to level and generally people make parties for doing these, so you get to meet people.)
They have a system now where you can pay like $7/month for "VIP" which has a bunch of bonuses (1.5x exp/1.5x drop/ losing less exp when you die/ etc...) and there is also items you can buy for $ (none of them are like god gears or anything but there are some upper end gears)
I haven't tried woe yet (doesn't interest me) so I can't comment on that.
In terms of grinding, I went from 1-99 trans in like.. a month or so? playing like 2 hours a day average as a knight. Once you get to like 90+ trans it slows down a lot but that's when the turn in events are so it's not so bad. Grinding to find certain items can take a while but it's not too bad unless you are looking for mvp cards or something. 3rd jobs all seem pretty cool to me and once you get to there you are rarely soloing unless you are hunting for items or whatever.
I never thought I'd actually get back into an mmo but I did -.-
I'm tempted to try out RO, but I have a question.
1. Have they geoblocked Europeans from signing up to iRO? Because I checked out the European website and it was badly designed. Basically, the first language that came up was French, I switched the language to English, I checked an English section of the website to find out the language auto-switched back to French.
2. How far behind is Europe in terms of updates?
Honestly, you should just play on kRO, jRO or a private server. iRO has a bad, baaaaad reputation for customer support, service updates, etc. It was behind about a year on updates when I started, and quit, playing. Most PServers are up to date and near the same population. Like uhhh, the one TL recently tried playing on, LuminaRO was pretty decent.
Also whoever said GTB was bad, it used to be fucking godlike, because you were immune to all HOSTILE magic, then they changed it to all magic so it wasnt as good. But you could still spam whites in WoE so it was still pretty freaking good.
Eh you really shouldn't be dying to magic anyways unless your fighting a 2x sala / fallen bishop wiz, either that or your DLP prof is terrible. you should always be using thara / horn, defaulting gtb is like begging to get AD'd / sonic'd / gfisted
also Lumina is pretty much dead, avg. population is like sub 100 these days. i guess people finally got fed up with the incompetent gms
On September 27 2011 17:32 ii.blitzkrieg wrote: I've tried a few over the years.
Back in 2002? or 2003 I started playing Ragnarok Online with a bunch of friends while it was in beta and shortly after went p2p. (iRO) It was fun playing with rl friends but super grindy. I played for something like 8 or 9 months until all my rl friends stopped playing.
Shortly after a friend talked me into buying ffxi. It was fun to party when you found one but really everything just took an unreasonably long amount of time to do so I quit after 1 or 2 months I think.
Tried some other free ones like ragnarok private servers, Cabal Online, Two Moons I think another was called but I didn't find any I liked.
Stopped for a looooong time once I found bw proscene (2006) until 2 months ago. 1 of my rl friends started playing iRO again and wanted me to play with him. Thinking I would get bored of it within a week I put it off but when I looked it up and realized that iRO was f2p now I decided I'd give it a shot.
I have to say it's wayyyy better than before. Renewal made it a lot easier to level. There are actually quests in the game now (Quests that can help you level all the way from 1-99 are permanent. Also easy equipment quests for decent newbie gear, I went from 1-99 trans in it fairly easily.) A lot of events (every few weeks there is 2x exp or 2x drops) and different quests for new headgears or whatever. Also they have been doing turn in events where you have to kill certain monsters for a quest every week (also makes it a lot easier to level and generally people make parties for doing these, so you get to meet people.)
They have a system now where you can pay like $7/month for "VIP" which has a bunch of bonuses (1.5x exp/1.5x drop/ losing less exp when you die/ etc...) and there is also items you can buy for $ (none of them are like god gears or anything but there are some upper end gears)
I haven't tried woe yet (doesn't interest me) so I can't comment on that.
In terms of grinding, I went from 1-99 trans in like.. a month or so? playing like 2 hours a day average as a knight. Once you get to like 90+ trans it slows down a lot but that's when the turn in events are so it's not so bad. Grinding to find certain items can take a while but it's not too bad unless you are looking for mvp cards or something. 3rd jobs all seem pretty cool to me and once you get to there you are rarely soloing unless you are hunting for items or whatever.
I never thought I'd actually get back into an mmo but I did -.-
I'm tempted to try out RO, but I have a question.
1. Have they geoblocked Europeans from signing up to iRO? Because I checked out the European website and it was badly designed. Basically, the first language that came up was French, I switched the language to English, I checked an English section of the website to find out the language auto-switched back to French.
2. How far behind is Europe in terms of updates?
Honestly, you should just play on kRO, jRO or a private server. iRO has a bad, baaaaad reputation for customer support, service updates, etc. It was behind about a year on updates when I started, and quit, playing. Most PServers are up to date and near the same population. Like uhhh, the one TL recently tried playing on, LuminaRO was pretty decent.
Also whoever said GTB was bad, it used to be fucking godlike, because you were immune to all HOSTILE magic, then they changed it to all magic so it wasnt as good. But you could still spam whites in WoE so it was still pretty freaking good.
Well I don't speak Korean or Japanese, so I think navigating the kRO or jRO websites would be really hard to actually do. Plus the clients may be in their native languages or sign-ups and log-ins may be geographically blocked seeing as i'm in Europe.
Also, aren't private servers for any MMORPG known to be buggy, unreliable, hard to set up or quickly shut down via cease and decist by the publishers' legal team? I dunno about Ragnarok Online but I don't know of any.
I once tried a Runescape private server and basically disconnected every minute. Plus there was barely any content, it was basically one of those "Speak to this NPC, get 99 in every skill, get an assortment of Melee, Range and Magic gear, walk outside and PK like a beast" types of ones.
I knew a friend that tried WoW private servers before going on to the real game. They're very niche, often don't emulate the WoW experience without major bugs or inconsistencies and often descend into just max level PvP.
Now that you mention it, iRO's update schedule doesn't seem that bad compared to other Korean MMOs I played. I believe that GMS was at one point around 2 - 3 years behind KMS but now is more like a year behind, and that EMS is around a year or two behind GMS. It took them around 2 years later than GMS to get the 4th Job Advancement update and they've only JUST got the Big Bang update whereas GMS had that shit for over a year now, is on Chaos and in days will be on Ascension.
I wouldn't mind waiting a year longer for probably endgame updates that I won't realistically reach unless I grind for 10 hours per day for months.
On September 27 2011 17:32 ii.blitzkrieg wrote: I've tried a few over the years.
Back in 2002? or 2003 I started playing Ragnarok Online with a bunch of friends while it was in beta and shortly after went p2p. (iRO) It was fun playing with rl friends but super grindy. I played for something like 8 or 9 months until all my rl friends stopped playing.
Shortly after a friend talked me into buying ffxi. It was fun to party when you found one but really everything just took an unreasonably long amount of time to do so I quit after 1 or 2 months I think.
Tried some other free ones like ragnarok private servers, Cabal Online, Two Moons I think another was called but I didn't find any I liked.
Stopped for a looooong time once I found bw proscene (2006) until 2 months ago. 1 of my rl friends started playing iRO again and wanted me to play with him. Thinking I would get bored of it within a week I put it off but when I looked it up and realized that iRO was f2p now I decided I'd give it a shot.
I have to say it's wayyyy better than before. Renewal made it a lot easier to level. There are actually quests in the game now (Quests that can help you level all the way from 1-99 are permanent. Also easy equipment quests for decent newbie gear, I went from 1-99 trans in it fairly easily.) A lot of events (every few weeks there is 2x exp or 2x drops) and different quests for new headgears or whatever. Also they have been doing turn in events where you have to kill certain monsters for a quest every week (also makes it a lot easier to level and generally people make parties for doing these, so you get to meet people.)
They have a system now where you can pay like $7/month for "VIP" which has a bunch of bonuses (1.5x exp/1.5x drop/ losing less exp when you die/ etc...) and there is also items you can buy for $ (none of them are like god gears or anything but there are some upper end gears)
I haven't tried woe yet (doesn't interest me) so I can't comment on that.
In terms of grinding, I went from 1-99 trans in like.. a month or so? playing like 2 hours a day average as a knight. Once you get to like 90+ trans it slows down a lot but that's when the turn in events are so it's not so bad. Grinding to find certain items can take a while but it's not too bad unless you are looking for mvp cards or something. 3rd jobs all seem pretty cool to me and once you get to there you are rarely soloing unless you are hunting for items or whatever.
I never thought I'd actually get back into an mmo but I did -.-
I'm tempted to try out RO, but I have a question.
1. Have they geoblocked Europeans from signing up to iRO? Because I checked out the European website and it was badly designed. Basically, the first language that came up was French, I switched the language to English, I checked an English section of the website to find out the language auto-switched back to French.
2. How far behind is Europe in terms of updates?
Honestly, you should just play on kRO, jRO or a private server. iRO has a bad, baaaaad reputation for customer support, service updates, etc. It was behind about a year on updates when I started, and quit, playing. Most PServers are up to date and near the same population. Like uhhh, the one TL recently tried playing on, LuminaRO was pretty decent.
Also whoever said GTB was bad, it used to be fucking godlike, because you were immune to all HOSTILE magic, then they changed it to all magic so it wasnt as good. But you could still spam whites in WoE so it was still pretty freaking good.
Eh you really shouldn't be dying to magic anyways unless your fighting a 2x sala / fallen bishop wiz, either that or your DLP prof is terrible. you should always be using thara / horn, defaulting gtb is like begging to get AD'd / sonic'd / gfisted
also Lumina is pretty much dead, avg. population is like sub 100 these days. i guess people finally got fed up with the incompetent gms
What's your stance on iRO and decent RO private servers?
It all begin one dark dark day in the summer of.. yea i dont remember which year LOL
but anyway, my first MMo experience was with a little game called Last Kingdom, which was pretty damn fun at the time (note: i was maybe 12?) i played for like 6 months and then the game was cancelled on me just as i approached max leve l still makes me angry.
From there I moved onto UO where I played on numerous free shards, from arcadia?(arcodia!?) to some smaller ones my friends were hosting/gming (i even gm'ed a few mid level ones at the time) played the crap out of UO for as long as i could possibly play during junior high -> into high school.
woah totally forgot, in between UO and WoW i played a crap load of iRO and to like 79/40~?? or somewhere there as a mage->wiz.. that shit was ultra fun but got SOOO grindy and none of my friends played so it was a lot of solo shiz
Grade 11 in high school i get introduced to WoW (i was also a d2 addict) so i got into WoW beta and i was hooked like a junkie, play the everliving crap out of WoW, top 15 in world guild clearing almost all content (aftermath lightning's blade [necronis]), pvped the hell out of it aswell (my true passion) got to rank 14, had pretty much every pvp item you could want in the game. BC rolls out, I decide it's just not worth it to do that all over again to be the best and quit/sell my acct / move on to RL until sc2 comes out and boom. I keep trying to get out, and you can't DRAGGING ME BACK! (damn you blizz)
On September 28 2011 00:04 Clbull wrote: What's your stance on iRO and decent RO private servers?
Honestly its just preference, there are literally hundreds of private servers around. I'd imagine all of them are pretty updated as most run the game off eAthena which has their own development team. The trick is to pick the server you feel like you'd enjoy yourself the most on, like low / middle / high rates and server specific custom additions, and a good GM team. Lumina was quite good, i remember their population averaged 700ish at one point, but the gm team was in fact terrible and had no idea what they were doing, it just took them a while to straight up kill their woe scene and all the guilds ended up leaving
I go back to WoW every now and then, I didn't buy Cata though because I'm one of those one-character-only-forever people who hates alts...
Seriously my only other character is a level 12 or something bank alt...lol
I hate the new Holy Power change to my paladin, but I think I'm just bitter to the change, as I've played him since release of Vanilla...so many days /played it's not even funny anymore...but every now and then I'll get an email from blizz that's all like. "yo come try us for free!" and I'm like okay, w/e.
I'm in ICC25 epics so all I do is tank queue heroics all day to help out people levelling beyond 80, haha. It's funny because it's almost always insta-pop queues and people will stay with me forever because I'm way overgeared and dont really need heals (seal of light or w/e it's called now ftw) and it's free queue pops.
It makes me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something in the game, even if it's for other people...that's the main reason I left, it just got so boring because I didn't feel like my time spent online was really furthering anything...just waiting for another raid to be released that I'd be able to clear ezpz. Haha.
I'm pretty much done with MMO's...I prefer the solo play nowadays because a) no drama, b) can do w/e the fuck I want whenever the hell I want to...
Only MMO I play is EVE Online and that's just because it's so drastically different from a normal MMO that it's just forking awesome.
On September 28 2011 00:54 Torenhire wrote: I hate the new Holy Power change to my paladin, but I think I'm just bitter to the change, as I've played him since release of Vanilla...so many days /played it's not even funny anymore...but every now and then I'll get an email from blizz that's all like. "yo come try us for free!" and I'm like okay, w/e.
I don't mind Holy Power personally, it's just that Ret damage still feels weak, and the class feels like playing a Warrior but with all the utility (i.e. Intimidating Shout, Heroic Leap, Charge, Intercept, Colossus Smash, Mortal Strike) taken out, and the damage halved.
Yeah, I was still ret when I came back post-cata changes...think I quit when ICC was 15%? I was mained holy and secondary ret, and I started to enjoy raiding as ret a lot more...it's even more of a button mash class and it does such bad damage...typical of blizzard though, they always seem to ruin ret pallys, then over-buff them, then ruin them again haha.
I'll flat out admit that I hate the new holy changes because they're not what I am used to playing for 6 years, so I just don't play holy. Prot is alright with the holy power though, and I enjoyed prot in Wrath, so that's the only thing I'll do.
I like to PVP in enemy capital cities but I can't anymore, the HP difference is MASSIVE. Plus I can't cleanse magic effects anymore so a shaman with flame shock / lava burst just one shots me haha. I've got like 30k hp in my PVP gear and they're all 80k and up in PVE
Makes me sad, but oh well haha. I have fun either way, but it's not the MMO I'm planning to play for more than a day or two when I get a free re-trial.
Not to diss the Europe-based ROs, but their update rates suck donkey balls compared to jRO and pRO. pRO is in English, and even though it's "supposedly" IP-blocked, one can just request for an IP unblock as long as you buy load for the game, or you can go F2P, as they that and a P2P server set. I kid you not, 10 USD goes a long way there, just a matter of finding a proper electronic load retailer who'll accept your dollar/euro if you want to go on to a P2P server. jRO I have less info on, and AFAIK they're stricter on their IP restrictions, but it's a slower game there. iRO is quite... okay, to say the least, but they're better than the Europe-based ones, no doubt about that.
On September 27 2011 17:32 ii.blitzkrieg wrote: I've tried a few over the years.
Back in 2002? or 2003 I started playing Ragnarok Online with a bunch of friends while it was in beta and shortly after went p2p. (iRO) It was fun playing with rl friends but super grindy. I played for something like 8 or 9 months until all my rl friends stopped playing.
Shortly after a friend talked me into buying ffxi. It was fun to party when you found one but really everything just took an unreasonably long amount of time to do so I quit after 1 or 2 months I think.
Tried some other free ones like ragnarok private servers, Cabal Online, Two Moons I think another was called but I didn't find any I liked.
Stopped for a looooong time once I found bw proscene (2006) until 2 months ago. 1 of my rl friends started playing iRO again and wanted me to play with him. Thinking I would get bored of it within a week I put it off but when I looked it up and realized that iRO was f2p now I decided I'd give it a shot.
I have to say it's wayyyy better than before. Renewal made it a lot easier to level. There are actually quests in the game now (Quests that can help you level all the way from 1-99 are permanent. Also easy equipment quests for decent newbie gear, I went from 1-99 trans in it fairly easily.) A lot of events (every few weeks there is 2x exp or 2x drops) and different quests for new headgears or whatever. Also they have been doing turn in events where you have to kill certain monsters for a quest every week (also makes it a lot easier to level and generally people make parties for doing these, so you get to meet people.)
They have a system now where you can pay like $7/month for "VIP" which has a bunch of bonuses (1.5x exp/1.5x drop/ losing less exp when you die/ etc...) and there is also items you can buy for $ (none of them are like god gears or anything but there are some upper end gears)
I haven't tried woe yet (doesn't interest me) so I can't comment on that.
In terms of grinding, I went from 1-99 trans in like.. a month or so? playing like 2 hours a day average as a knight. Once you get to like 90+ trans it slows down a lot but that's when the turn in events are so it's not so bad. Grinding to find certain items can take a while but it's not too bad unless you are looking for mvp cards or something. 3rd jobs all seem pretty cool to me and once you get to there you are rarely soloing unless you are hunting for items or whatever.
I never thought I'd actually get back into an mmo but I did -.-
I'm tempted to try out RO, but I have a question.
1. Have they geoblocked Europeans from signing up to iRO? Because I checked out the European website and it was badly designed. Basically, the first language that came up was French, I switched the language to English, I checked an English section of the website to find out the language auto-switched back to French. Some of the menus didn't get translated and there clearly wasn't a working English option for some of the pages.
2. How far behind is Europe in terms of updates? If it's really far behind (I'm talking Europe MapleStory behind then I won't bother.
1. I am pretty sure Europeans can sign up to iRO as I have played with multiple europeans in my guild.
2. Not sure how far Europe is behind but I think iRO is somewhere from 6 months to 1 year behind. They have delayed putting the new skill patch in for a while now and have done some events to apologize for that.
Back when I played in tbc I was a pvp fanatic.. Multiple gladiator toons and rank 1 titles on my rogue... Was very fun back then.. Also was part of a top tier raiding guild... All on shattered hand xD... Game got boring in cata.... I think my interest burns out once I get to the top level( or near it )
Same thing happened in sc2.. Got into GM and quit season 3.. Diablo 3 pl0x
you really missed out on runescape if being a member was available....golden age of runescape was before they made the big graphical overhaul. It was a really legit game for its time then, still like the only popular browser mmorpg. PKing and the atmosphere of the game was great back then.
On September 28 2011 06:24 bebe01 wrote: Back when I played in tbc I was a pvp fanatic.. Multiple gladiator toons and rank 1 titles on my rogue... Was very fun back then.. Also was part of a top tier raiding guild... All on shattered hand xD... Game got boring in cata.... I think my interest burns out once I get to the top level( or near it )
Same thing happened in sc2.. Got into GM and quit season 3.. Diablo 3 pl0x
best brag post iv ever seen haha, I cant wait for d3 too. probably going to take a week off to play
On a serious note, the only MMO i was ever any good at was RO, and thats because its the only MMO with a legitimate skill factor in it.
That is, having a strong guild of friends who know what they are doing is enough to totally 100% roll other guilds with a vastly inferior numbercount using skill and teamwork alone.
For example, on eRO, me and our guild got all 25 of us to max level 99/70 on a 3x server within 4 days of the server opening. Within the next 3 days after that we were all fully geared for WoE Pretty much people don't understand how this is possible to do but its just skill and teamwork Oh, and when i say all 25 of us, we each had about 4-5 accounts with different characters, so overall we farmed about 50 billion exp in about 4 days
Say, seeing as some of you seem to be in agreement with the fact that MMOs are more fun with others, I was thinking "Why not start a TL guild on WoW?"
I was looking for a way to perhaps squeeze some more enjoyment out of World of Warcraft and perhaps forming a guild where raiding and rated pvp is an option but not something we're meant to hardcorely set a schedule for is a good idea.
I mean I wanted to experience the game but not basically be told to be on at around 9pm on a tuesday and friday night every week else lose 50DKP, get the scorn of my raid leader or get outright booted from the guild.
I checked using the search function several times and know of no TeamLiquid guilds that have formed lately on EU. I believe one did form on US but
Is anybody up for doing this on WoW or another MMO? I was thinking if I were to form this, I'd probably name it something unique other than TeamLiquid or Team Liquid, much like how Reddit has a horde guild on Sargeras-US called "Karma Horde"
This game... my o my, the game that punishes you hardcore, but when you succeed, it'll give you the best feeling.
Literally, if you don't have a second computer (or you use windower) to look stuff up on the net such as quests, where to buy items etc, don't bother playing. You start off and you will have NO IDEA wtf to do, there's no indicator on your map nor any easy signs to point you out.
A slow paced game, a Great Axe will swing once every 8 seconds at the start, a dagger will poke once every 4 seconds. Take into the fact you'll have a 70% accuracy rating in general (less as you fight slightly tougher creeps). To rest to full health at the start, it will take you a good minute or 2. If you don't have at least an hour to play, don't bother turning on the game because you won't achieve much.
Now the end of the rant, lets move to the good points of this lovely game.
Getting into a party of 6 to level up was literally the best thing in the world. Inherently, Japanese players have IMMACULATE teamwork, no words need to be said, everyone knows what to do and when exactly to do it. A good party will level up very very quickly and the addiction of getting a perfect party will itch you hardcore.
The game was about balance, you needed a tank, physical dps, sub-tank/dps, healer, caster, support caster. Thankfully, there was no job/class that was overpowered nor underpowered. Because you were fighting creeps that were 5-8 levels(ie: they can 1-2 shot a caster) above you, threat of a party wipeout was always there and thats probably why everyone who actually played the game was quite pro at it.
About teamwork, for the tank, he needs to keep the creep focused on him the whole time, the healer cannot heal too quickly, a mage cannot cast too often. Combined with the long rest nature, casters must be very very efficient with their mana. The game rewarded parties that could kill strong creeps through bonus EXP if you can kill successive creeps (EXP Chain). See where I'm heading? Better the party, your leveling time decreases exponentially.
On September 28 2011 15:15 Zariel wrote: Ahhh... the memories of Final Fantasy XI
This game... my o my, the game that punishes you hardcore, but when you succeed, it'll give you the best feeling.
Literally, if you don't have a second computer (or you use windower) to look stuff up on the net such as quests, where to buy items etc, don't bother playing. You start off and you will have NO IDEA wtf to do, there's no indicator on your map nor any easy signs to point you out.
A slow paced game, a Great Axe will swing once every 8 seconds at the start, a dagger will poke once every 4 seconds. Take into the fact you'll have a 70% accuracy rating in general (less as you fight slightly tougher creeps). To rest to full health at the start, it will take you a good minute or 2. If you don't have at least an hour to play, don't bother turning on the game because you won't achieve much.
Now the end of the rant, lets move to the good points of this lovely game.
Getting into a party of 6 to level up was literally the best thing in the world. Inherently, Japanese players have IMMACULATE teamwork, no words need to be said, everyone knows what to do and when exactly to do it. A good party will level up very very quickly and the addiction of getting a perfect party will itch you hardcore.
The game was about balance, you needed a tank, physical dps, sub-tank/dps, healer, caster, support caster. Thankfully, there was no job/class that was overpowered nor underpowered. Because you were fighting creeps that were 5-8 levels(ie: they can 1-2 shot a caster) above you, threat of a party wipeout was always there and thats probably why everyone who actually played the game was quite pro at it.
About teamwork, for the tank, he needs to keep the creep focused on him the whole time, the healer cannot heal too quickly, a mage cannot cast too often. Combined with the long rest nature, casters must be very very efficient with their mana. The game rewarded parties that could kill strong creeps through bonus EXP if you can kill successive creeps (EXP Chain). See where I'm heading? Better the party, your leveling time decreases exponentially.
There's a bucketload more I'd like to share.
TL:DR: Do not play if your a casual gamer
hahahah OMG yes.
I remember being like 13 and my sleep schedule involved going to bed at 6 in the morning, waking up at like Noon and then playing all day, but always making sure that at about 2 in the morning I would go LFG [Japanese] [ok] .
Lol the trick to leveling in this game, was playing a high demand class and rolling with all JP groups.
IDK why but every JP group leveled 5-10x faster for some reason they were just infinitely better, was the best.
Also my fondest memories = my last 2 months of this game I did nothing but fish on the boat from Selbina hoping to see a Kraken kill everyone, or a lvl 75 to come on the boat and kill the kraken. And the Pirate event was super awsome too.
The reason i quit FFXI- chances on loot drops.
I once killed Leaping Lizzy 13/15 spawns in a row and didnt get the goddamn boots -_-.
That and towards the end of my FFXI career is when they released the PS ports so leveling with retarded kids on their playstations who had no keyboard so they couldnt communicate made leveling HELL. and they were always terrible. So i spent my last 2 months shooting the shit with my linkshell friends, just fishing and watching the Kraken and pirates kill people lol. I was working on Lu Shangs but didnt have the patience to finish that task lol
talking about this makes me miss FFXI and really irritated that the latest FF mmo was such complete and total garbage... seriously they should have taken FFXI given it better graphics, let people jump. And all would have been good.
On September 28 2011 00:22 darcevader88 wrote: where do i start?
It all begin one dark dark day in the summer of.. yea i dont remember which year LOL
but anyway, my first MMo experience was with a little game called Last Kingdom, which was pretty damn fun at the time (note: i was maybe 12?) i played for like 6 months and then the game was cancelled on me just as i approached max leve l still makes me angry.
From there I moved onto UO where I played on numerous free shards, from arcadia?(arcodia!?) to some smaller ones my friends were hosting/gming (i even gm'ed a few mid level ones at the time) played the crap out of UO for as long as i could possibly play during junior high -> into high school.
woah totally forgot, in between UO and WoW i played a crap load of iRO and to like 79/40~?? or somewhere there as a mage->wiz.. that shit was ultra fun but got SOOO grindy and none of my friends played so it was a lot of solo shiz
Grade 11 in high school i get introduced to WoW (i was also a d2 addict) so i got into WoW beta and i was hooked like a junkie, play the everliving crap out of WoW, top 15 in world guild clearing almost all content (aftermath lightning's blade [necronis]), pvped the hell out of it aswell (my true passion) got to rank 14, had pretty much every pvp item you could want in the game. BC rolls out, I decide it's just not worth it to do that all over again to be the best and quit/sell my acct / move on to RL until sc2 comes out and boom. I keep trying to get out, and you can't DRAGGING ME BACK! (damn you blizz)
US Lightnings Blade? If Alliance, I played on that server for the first 2 years of WoW. Was good friends with Jookya, Ming, Tangji. 3 of the first Grand Marshalls (? equivalent of alliance High Warlords, but back when getting these titles meant 60-70 hours a week of nothing but ganking in open fields) Was in Sigil for a bit. There was a UD warlock whose name I cant remember.. who was known server wide for premade PvP'ing it was like "Constantine" or something, i remember he was UD lock and whenever you got into a BG vs his premades the alliance would just accept defeat and wait for next game lol.
The most epic pvp time in WoW was vanilla seeing Ming and Jookya just 1v5 people no problem. Same with Sunken... aaahh rogues were sooooo badass back then
Also the horde guild SiN OMG LOL. that guild gave every single alliance person nightmares back when i played on that server lol
On September 28 2011 15:15 Zariel wrote: Ahhh... the memories of Final Fantasy XI
This game... my o my, the game that punishes you hardcore, but when you succeed, it'll give you the best feeling.
Literally, if you don't have a second computer (or you use windower) to look stuff up on the net such as quests, where to buy items etc, don't bother playing. You start off and you will have NO IDEA wtf to do, there's no indicator on your map nor any easy signs to point you out.
A slow paced game, a Great Axe will swing once every 8 seconds at the start, a dagger will poke once every 4 seconds. Take into the fact you'll have a 70% accuracy rating in general (less as you fight slightly tougher creeps). To rest to full health at the start, it will take you a good minute or 2. If you don't have at least an hour to play, don't bother turning on the game because you won't achieve much.
Now the end of the rant, lets move to the good points of this lovely game.
Getting into a party of 6 to level up was literally the best thing in the world. Inherently, Japanese players have IMMACULATE teamwork, no words need to be said, everyone knows what to do and when exactly to do it. A good party will level up very very quickly and the addiction of getting a perfect party will itch you hardcore.
The game was about balance, you needed a tank, physical dps, sub-tank/dps, healer, caster, support caster. Thankfully, there was no job/class that was overpowered nor underpowered. Because you were fighting creeps that were 5-8 levels(ie: they can 1-2 shot a caster) above you, threat of a party wipeout was always there and thats probably why everyone who actually played the game was quite pro at it.
About teamwork, for the tank, he needs to keep the creep focused on him the whole time, the healer cannot heal too quickly, a mage cannot cast too often. Combined with the long rest nature, casters must be very very efficient with their mana. The game rewarded parties that could kill strong creeps through bonus EXP if you can kill successive creeps (EXP Chain). See where I'm heading? Better the party, your leveling time decreases exponentially.
There's a bucketload more I'd like to share.
TL:DR: Do not play if your a casual gamer
hahahah OMG yes.
I remember being like 13 and my sleep schedule involved going to bed at 6 in the morning, waking up at like Noon and then playing all day, but always making sure that at about 2 in the morning I would go LFG [Japanese] [ok] .
Lol the trick to leveling in this game, was playing a high demand class and rolling with all JP groups.
IDK why but every JP group leveled 5-10x faster for some reason they were just infinitely better, was the best.
Also my fondest memories = my last 2 months of this game I did nothing but fish on the boat from Selbina hoping to see a Kraken kill everyone, or a lvl 75 to come on the boat and kill the kraken. And the Pirate event was super awsome too.
The reason i quit FFXI- chances on loot drops.
I once killed Leaping Lizzy 13/15 spawns in a row and didnt get the goddamn boots -_-.
That and towards the end of my FFXI career is when they released the PS ports so leveling with retarded kids on their playstations who had no keyboard so they couldnt communicate made leveling HELL. and they were always terrible. So i spent my last 2 months shooting the shit with my linkshell friends, just fishing and watching the Kraken and pirates kill people lol. I was working on Lu Shangs but didnt have the patience to finish that task lol
talking about this makes me miss FFXI and really irritated that the latest FF mmo was such complete and total garbage... seriously they should have taken FFXI given it better graphics, let people jump. And all would have been good.
Yeah, hunting exotic monsters/boss (Notorious Monsters NM) was the biggest pain in the butt. I went 1/11 on Valkurm Emperor, 1/8 on Leaping Lizzy, 0/1 on Argus. For people who dont know, these monsters/boss spawn once every 1-4 hours sometimes with some hefty competition with a big area in which it could spawn at. It's not just put a stop-watch and wait, you had to be focused for those few hours to scan for that boss to see if he's popped up. Top off all this with around 10% drop rates on the item you wanted
Till today, I still miss this game, I wish all my friends would play it. I still have visions of playing DRG/SAM getting 100TP > Penta Thrust > Meditate, Jump, High Jump > Penta Thrust. Or your good ole Thief during level 35 with Sneak Attack + Trick Attack + Viper Bite, followed by some Blizzardga.
And yes, the trick to get to level 75 was to play Bard. EVERYONE loves a Bard. Like.... no joke lol. Red Mages get alot of attention too if you were good.
I am very careful on when I select my MMO to play, because once you get your hands on it, you have to play for a while, unlike console. also, it doesnt help that mmo is usually p2p. Please read thoroughly below on my thoughts.
couple things about grind.. There are SO many crybabies around when people play MMO that it is unbearable to read their writings, so I just stop reading them. They cry so much about grind, being ganked what not. I say BS. They don't know how to play the game then.
For instance, I cannot understand anyone who complains about grind in Aion. I've played to max level, and I got to it by questing alone. Aion was LOADS of fun pvping and rifting to kill asmos! It was fun searching their kisks and destroying them too. Aion Quests WERE partially grinds but not bad compared to the likes of....
Lineage 2. Oh yes this is the ULTIMATE grind game. I've heard stories that FF online (dunno which version) is a major grind fest too, but I played L2 for a good 5-6 years and nothing comes close to being a grind fest as this. Basically, every important quest is like kill 700 mobs and then go off kill 500 mobs or loot 10 marks that never drop etc etc. L2's upside is the incredible siege system and pvp. IMO the BEST pvp MMO although its all button mashing, because of the system. L2 has this awesome thing called Olympiad, and it dpeends on if u play retail or private server, but basically, it's a weekly/monthly tournament where you fight others 1 on 1 and the player with highest point per class becomes hero. It is very skill dependant, as I have wrecked the scene with my evas templar with worse gear than other competing evas templars many times.
The FIRST mmo i played was Lineage 1. This was when Lineage 1 was the absolutely beautiful, amazing, exciting game with awesome community and everything about it was magical. It is pretty much before bunch of patches were made and biggest boss was a death knight and going off to the mainland was an exciting adventure. The game went to hell after that being an even worse grind fest than lineage 2 (typical korean mmo) but Vanilla Lineage was the best, far beyond what WoW was. It also had incredible sound track (so did L2, lineage 2 still has the best music.. imo)
What I'm playing now, is LOTRO. this is hands down the best mmo ive played so far in my +12 yrs of mmo experience. Great quest line, very friendly atmosphere, fun pve, grinds are not that boring, and if you love LOTR, then you will love this game just by going to places. I only recently started and purchased preorder for Isengard, which started 2 days ago. I can't wait to hit lvl 65 and head out to Isengard region.
LOTRO is free to play now, but it is worth investing money into it. F2P players can also play PvMP, where you play as orc or uruk to fight against men. they will keep updating, next being Rohan region and then Gondor, then hopefully Mordor. Will take a while, but they don't make you wait that long imo. There is lots to do in this game and I really recommend it to people who are thinking about starting up a new MMO as it is easy and fun!
I was really considering what to play, between Lotro, vanguard, rift and etc. Lotro being f2p and getting very good review (with upcoming new content) while rift getting worse and worse reviews with WoW clone tag, i decided to go woth lotro. Also, now that I am working full time as an intern, i have less time to play, so for casual mmo gamers who wants good experience, i rec lotro. We can definitely make a kinship in lotro, I play on Brandywyne
Verdict:
Best MMO to play right now : LOTRO Best Quest : LOTRO hands down Best Upcoming MMO: Toss up between Blade and Soul & Guild wars 2 Best MMO Graphics : Aion Best Soundtrack : Lineage 2 Best PvP : L2 or Aion MMO I hate the most : WoW (was boring..) MMO I want to try : TERA Best community : LOTRO Easiest MMO and low learning curve : LOTRO
Good times good times. Who remembers the time when you butterfly wing back to prontera, hear the prontera theme, and cycle though venders on the side of the roads. Oh man.
A bit off topic, but one of the more important realizations that I've had recently is that to grow as a person, one needs to always look for their own faults during times of conflict and not always look for an excuse for whatever happens.
With that said, @ OP: if you were constantly having problems with guilds after guilds, eliciting seemingly unreasonable behavior from others (it's very rare for someone to abhor someone else so much over the internet to lie to you and bar you from their guild, when you've done "nothing wrong"), while at the same time portraying yourself as this victim of senseless online hate with zero faults, then I would suggest that you look into your own behavior/mannerism when you play MMOs, and to a lesser extent, in life.
On September 29 2011 01:41 HardMacro wrote: A bit off topic, but one of the more important realizations that I've had recently is that to grow as a person, one needs to always look for their own faults during times of conflict and not always look for an excuse for whatever happens.
With that said, @ OP: if you were constantly having problems with guilds after guilds, eliciting seemingly unreasonable behavior from others (it's very rare for someone to abhor someone else so much over the internet to lie to you and bar you from their guild, when you've done "nothing wrong"), while at the same time portraying yourself as this victim of senseless online hate with zero faults, then I would suggest that you look into your own behavior/mannerism when you play MMOs, and to a lesser extent, in life.
Just a thought and good luck.
While this is true, sometimes immature people are just immature people.
For example: One of my raid leaders on WoW wouldn't take this one girl on our raids because she wanted to be the only girl in raid. (attention whore much?)...she always said she just didnt want a second warlock in our 10man, yet we always took this one orc warlock (who was super awesome, one of my WoW best friends :p)
Another example: Guild leader kicked a member because his voice was a little nasally...not like a 13 year old high pitched squeaky voice...just a little nasally. No one really cared but the GL just didn't care to hear it on raid night so he just gkicked him and banned him from TS randomly lol.
Also someone mentioned LOTRO - if you're a Lord of the Rings fan, it's a pretty awesome MMO, but even if you're not it's great. They stick to the book really well, even better than the movies did (Tom Bombadil <333) ... I spent a lot of time playing LOTRO with my then girlfriend because we got tired of playing WoW...it ended up being a lot of fun, playing through the LOTR storyline but in MMO form.
I'm debating buying a Korean TERA account because the people who are releasing it for US are - and direct quoting this - "Westernizing the game" which most likely means "ruining the whole game" ... Macabre a long time ago gave me some good impressions of the game and I was pretty excited to try it out... though like I said, I've liked playing in MMO communities less and less so I don't even know if I'll give it a shot. The only reason I like EVE Online is because you can solo play whenever you want, and it doesn't detriment the game at all...need more MMOs like that. (D3 :D)
On September 29 2011 01:41 HardMacro wrote: A bit off topic, but one of the more important realizations that I've had recently is that to grow as a person, one needs to always look for their own faults during times of conflict and not always look for an excuse for whatever happens.
With that said, @ OP: if you were constantly having problems with guilds after guilds, eliciting seemingly unreasonable behavior from others (it's very rare for someone to abhor someone else so much over the internet to lie to you and bar you from their guild, when you've done "nothing wrong"), while at the same time portraying yourself as this victim of senseless online hate with zero faults, then I would suggest that you look into your own behavior/mannerism when you play MMOs, and to a lesser extent, in life.
Just a thought and good luck.
Whoa, whoa. I find this comment kinda insulting to be honest, but probably understandable seeing as I only briefly touched over the story where I actually got guild kicked.
In fact, I didn't tell the full story of that guild, which went more like this.
I didn't really do anything wrong in that guild, except maybe cause a slight commotion over a troll who had verbally tried to rip me apart (with offensive language, dodging ignorelists by spamming "FUCK YOU" at me on several alts), all because I asked for a portal to Stonard and he believed they didn't exist.
I'll admit, I'm no Liquid'Sheth, and I am not always mannered and polite but was what I did wrong (This was the only thing that actually stood out as far as my attitude went) justification to do this after my kick:
Spam insults about me unprovoked in Trade.
Spread lies about me like claiming I ninjaed loot from raids or suck at the game. I dunno if it was them (I couldn't find any evidence) but seeing as they were pretty much the only guild I got kicked from, I think it's plausible.
Refuse to tell me why I was kicked, or even talk to me to try and resolve anything.
Had a few of their members directly insult me.
Got kicked by one of their members from a dungeon run, as they used me as a free summon.
I didn't think so either...
I'm suspicious that it was at least partially them who got me blacklisted from the major guilds on my old realm because many of their ex members got to that level and began to go into higher-up guilds, plus I got insults and lies directed about me all over the place.
I also moved server only partially because of that. The other reason was that I was getting bored and frustrated with the Hunter class. I knew after the time when I quit over finding 4 nights of raid leadership and college too hard to keep up with that I wouldn't be able to commit to a huge raid schedule anyway.
You talk about them as if they had an irrational hatred of you and that's rarely ever the case. You probably did something and you didn't pick up on it, which would explain why it happened in other guilds too.
On September 29 2011 08:01 Jibba wrote: You talk about them as if they had an irrational hatred of you and that's rarely ever the case. You probably did something and you didn't pick up on it, which would explain why it happened in other guilds too.
If hypothetically that were the case then I don't know what it is, and nobody has explained what it is.
DUDE Runescape was the shit like 5 years ago. What fifteen year old boy with a computer DIDNT play it then? I just checked my old account for shits and gigs and I have over 50 days worth of play time on it.....rofl
On September 29 2011 10:33 DakotaA7X wrote: DUDE Runescape was the shit like 5 years ago. What fifteen year old boy with a computer DIDNT play it then? I just checked my old account for shits and gigs and I have over 50 days worth of play time on it.....rofl
Wait a minute, you need to be a member to check this statistic?
On September 29 2011 10:33 DakotaA7X wrote: DUDE Runescape was the shit like 5 years ago. What fifteen year old boy with a computer DIDNT play it then? I just checked my old account for shits and gigs and I have over 50 days worth of play time on it.....rofl
I was like 10 when I played RuneScape :x When I was 15 I was playing RO and Guild Wars
Runescape back in the day of me being year 6/7, which was like 2000/2001. Before they had the random little screen shift every min or 2 so you couldnt use Ghost Mouse to auto-mine. Before Wilderness (you could PvP anywhere if you had the mode turned on, you could only toggle it 3 times).
In year 9, I sold my account to some year 7 kid for $60 australian. Level 83 mining, 71 smithing IIRC.
On September 28 2011 15:15 Zariel wrote: Ahhh... the memories of Final Fantasy XI
This game... my o my, the game that punishes you hardcore, but when you succeed, it'll give you the best feeling.
Literally, if you don't have a second computer (or you use windower) to look stuff up on the net such as quests, where to buy items etc, don't bother playing. You start off and you will have NO IDEA wtf to do, there's no indicator on your map nor any easy signs to point you out.
A slow paced game, a Great Axe will swing once every 8 seconds at the start, a dagger will poke once every 4 seconds. Take into the fact you'll have a 70% accuracy rating in general (less as you fight slightly tougher creeps). To rest to full health at the start, it will take you a good minute or 2. If you don't have at least an hour to play, don't bother turning on the game because you won't achieve much.
Now the end of the rant, lets move to the good points of this lovely game.
Getting into a party of 6 to level up was literally the best thing in the world. Inherently, Japanese players have IMMACULATE teamwork, no words need to be said, everyone knows what to do and when exactly to do it. A good party will level up very very quickly and the addiction of getting a perfect party will itch you hardcore.
I always liked the Summoner Class...when they actually had all the cool summon spells lol The game was about balance, you needed a tank, physical dps, sub-tank/dps, healer, caster, support caster. Thankfully, there was no job/class that was overpowered nor underpowered. Because you were fighting creeps that were 5-8 levels(ie: they can 1-2 shot a caster) above you, threat of a party wipeout was always there and thats probably why everyone who actually played the game was quite pro at it.
About teamwork, for the tank, he needs to keep the creep focused on him the whole time, the healer cannot heal too quickly, a mage cannot cast too often. Combined with the long rest nature, casters must be very very efficient with their mana. The game rewarded parties that could kill strong creeps through bonus EXP if you can kill successive creeps (EXP Chain). See where I'm heading? Better the party, your leveling time decreases exponentially.
There's a bucketload more I'd like to share.
TL:DR: Do not play if your a casual gamer
hahahah OMG yes.
I remember being like 13 and my sleep schedule involved going to bed at 6 in the morning, waking up at like Noon and then playing all day, but always making sure that at about 2 in the morning I would go LFG [Japanese] [ok] .
Lol the trick to leveling in this game, was playing a high demand class and rolling with all JP groups.
IDK why but every JP group leveled 5-10x faster for some reason they were just infinitely better, was the best.
Also my fondest memories = my last 2 months of this game I did nothing but fish on the boat from Selbina hoping to see a Kraken kill everyone, or a lvl 75 to come on the boat and kill the kraken. And the Pirate event was super awsome too.
The reason i quit FFXI- chances on loot drops.
I once killed Leaping Lizzy 13/15 spawns in a row and didnt get the goddamn boots -_-.
That and towards the end of my FFXI career is when they released the PS ports so leveling with retarded kids on their playstations who had no keyboard so they couldnt communicate made leveling HELL. and they were always terrible. So i spent my last 2 months shooting the shit with my linkshell friends, just fishing and watching the Kraken and pirates kill people lol. I was working on Lu Shangs but didnt have the patience to finish that task lol
talking about this makes me miss FFXI and really irritated that the latest FF mmo was such complete and total garbage... seriously they should have taken FFXI given it better graphics, let people jump. And all would have been good.
Yeah, hunting exotic monsters/boss (Notorious Monsters NM) was the biggest pain in the butt. I went 1/11 on Valkurm Emperor, 1/8 on Leaping Lizzy, 0/1 on Argus. For people who dont know, these monsters/boss spawn once every 1-4 hours sometimes with some hefty competition with a big area in which it could spawn at. It's not just put a stop-watch and wait, you had to be focused for those few hours to scan for that boss to see if he's popped up. Top off all this with around 10% drop rates on the item you wanted
Till today, I still miss this game, I wish all my friends would play it. I still have visions of playing DRG/SAM getting 100TP > Penta Thrust > Meditate, Jump, High Jump > Penta Thrust. Or your good ole Thief during level 35 with Sneak Attack + Trick Attack + Viper Bite, followed by some Blizzardga.
And yes, the trick to get to level 75 was to play Bard. EVERYONE loves a Bard. Like.... no joke lol. Red Mages get alot of attention too if you were good.
but Red mages were TERRIBLE from levels 10-40. And getting a group with them in those levels was a joke. Werent strong enough to main heal, werent hard hitting enough to choose a RM over a BM. But at max level they were the bosses of the game
I played RS and got 22 99s in 10 minutes. Did a bit of dungeoneering when it came out but quit because MMORPG's are basically stupid and require almost no skill except lots of free time.
On September 28 2011 00:22 darcevader88 wrote: where do i start?
It all begin one dark dark day in the summer of.. yea i dont remember which year LOL
but anyway, my first MMo experience was with a little game called Last Kingdom, which was pretty damn fun at the time (note: i was maybe 12?) i played for like 6 months and then the game was cancelled on me just as i approached max leve l still makes me angry.
From there I moved onto UO where I played on numerous free shards, from arcadia?(arcodia!?) to some smaller ones my friends were hosting/gming (i even gm'ed a few mid level ones at the time) played the crap out of UO for as long as i could possibly play during junior high -> into high school.
woah totally forgot, in between UO and WoW i played a crap load of iRO and to like 79/40~?? or somewhere there as a mage->wiz.. that shit was ultra fun but got SOOO grindy and none of my friends played so it was a lot of solo shiz
Grade 11 in high school i get introduced to WoW (i was also a d2 addict) so i got into WoW beta and i was hooked like a junkie, play the everliving crap out of WoW, top 15 in world guild clearing almost all content (aftermath lightning's blade [necronis]), pvped the hell out of it aswell (my true passion) got to rank 14, had pretty much every pvp item you could want in the game. BC rolls out, I decide it's just not worth it to do that all over again to be the best and quit/sell my acct / move on to RL until sc2 comes out and boom. I keep trying to get out, and you can't DRAGGING ME BACK! (damn you blizz)
US Lightnings Blade? If Alliance, I played on that server for the first 2 years of WoW. Was good friends with Jookya, Ming, Tangji. 3 of the first Grand Marshalls (? equivalent of alliance High Warlords, but back when getting these titles meant 60-70 hours a week of nothing but ganking in open fields) Was in Sigil for a bit. There was a UD warlock whose name I cant remember.. who was known server wide for premade PvP'ing it was like "Constantine" or something, i remember he was UD lock and whenever you got into a BG vs his premades the alliance would just accept defeat and wait for next game lol.
The most epic pvp time in WoW was vanilla seeing Ming and Jookya just 1v5 people no problem. Same with Sunken... aaahh rogues were sooooo badass back then
Also the horde guild SiN OMG LOL. that guild gave every single alliance person nightmares back when i played on that server lol
Yea man, Necronis was my name. I was in Aftermath - I was one of the vet guys on constantine's team (got GM like a month after he did with almost the same crew of guys) we would roll into Bgs and people would just /afk out or stand there while we capped the flags/etc or they'd try and we'd eat them alive.
It was a good time for my gaming life :D and that's sick u played there! :D and YES vanilla wow was epic pvp, after that it got pure SHIT. [ming is a bitch, i use to toy with him in 1s and even use to playo n my buddies mage n smash him LOL, sooo overrated] im pretty sure im listed on the wowwiki for lb server i got gm the same week with my best pvp buddy at the time Terrion. (crazy bulgarian mofo HAH)
On September 30 2011 23:56 Clbull wrote: Okay, I'm downloading iRO and I'm gonna probably do a later update on my experiences with it.
Oh right, I forgot iRO went F2P a while ago. It looks like the website got overhauled too, man it's been a while since I was on the iRO website. I'm gonna miss that nonsensical engrish quiz that helped you choose your job class
Must resist RO urges; after private servers I can't ever do 1x/1x/1x rates, cannot.. cannot..
I played RS like way back in 2002, got pretty rich too I played MS as well, all the cool people used to hang out in that snow town before the free market was open!! After it opened people don't hang out there anymore and they're all gone and I remember it made me a little depressed
MMO's now days are cake walks. You really dont know what hell is until you had to get a 72 person raid to STFU and pay attention while whoever was in charge types out directions(vent and ts werent around). Then after typing out all of your instructions run into a Vox or Nagy raid, wipe, spend next 4 hours retrieving your corpse that is 2feet near the dragon...or if said person is a dick and aggro's dragon and trains on rest of raid recovering from the beating...every time you die you lose experience and can get leveled down.
When you cleared content in that game you definitely earned it!
On September 28 2011 00:22 darcevader88 wrote: where do i start?
It all begin one dark dark day in the summer of.. yea i dont remember which year LOL
but anyway, my first MMo experience was with a little game called Last Kingdom, which was pretty damn fun at the time (note: i was maybe 12?) i played for like 6 months and then the game was cancelled on me just as i approached max leve l still makes me angry.
From there I moved onto UO where I played on numerous free shards, from arcadia?(arcodia!?) to some smaller ones my friends were hosting/gming (i even gm'ed a few mid level ones at the time) played the crap out of UO for as long as i could possibly play during junior high -> into high school.
woah totally forgot, in between UO and WoW i played a crap load of iRO and to like 79/40~?? or somewhere there as a mage->wiz.. that shit was ultra fun but got SOOO grindy and none of my friends played so it was a lot of solo shiz
Grade 11 in high school i get introduced to WoW (i was also a d2 addict) so i got into WoW beta and i was hooked like a junkie, play the everliving crap out of WoW, top 15 in world guild clearing almost all content (aftermath lightning's blade [necronis]), pvped the hell out of it aswell (my true passion) got to rank 14, had pretty much every pvp item you could want in the game. BC rolls out, I decide it's just not worth it to do that all over again to be the best and quit/sell my acct / move on to RL until sc2 comes out and boom. I keep trying to get out, and you can't DRAGGING ME BACK! (damn you blizz)
US Lightnings Blade? If Alliance, I played on that server for the first 2 years of WoW. Was good friends with Jookya, Ming, Tangji. 3 of the first Grand Marshalls (? equivalent of alliance High Warlords, but back when getting these titles meant 60-70 hours a week of nothing but ganking in open fields) Was in Sigil for a bit. There was a UD warlock whose name I cant remember.. who was known server wide for premade PvP'ing it was like "Constantine" or something, i remember he was UD lock and whenever you got into a BG vs his premades the alliance would just accept defeat and wait for next game lol.
The most epic pvp time in WoW was vanilla seeing Ming and Jookya just 1v5 people no problem. Same with Sunken... aaahh rogues were sooooo badass back then
Also the horde guild SiN OMG LOL. that guild gave every single alliance person nightmares back when i played on that server lol
Yea man, Necronis was my name. I was in Aftermath - I was one of the vet guys on constantine's team (got GM like a month after he did with almost the same crew of guys) we would roll into Bgs and people would just /afk out or stand there while we capped the flags/etc or they'd try and we'd eat them alive.
It was a good time for my gaming life :D and that's sick u played there! :D and YES vanilla wow was epic pvp, after that it got pure SHIT. [ming is a bitch, i use to toy with him in 1s and even use to playo n my buddies mage n smash him LOL, sooo overrated] im pretty sure im listed on the wowwiki for lb server i got gm the same week with my best pvp buddy at the time Terrion. (crazy bulgarian mofo HAH)
haha thats cool to meet someone from Lightnings Blade. I remember going against Constantine's stupid premades lol it was always as soon as we entered "well this is over..." lol.
Was good friends with Tangji a NE hunter who got GM Super fast also. was def the glory days of WoW before resilience shit and terrible balancing
I played Ragnarok Online for like 4 years on the iRO Chaos server... Yes, the one that was subscription based. |: Was in a pretty decent guild, which kept me going. I think I was 12 when I first started playing. Then I switched to some other Korean mmos, like Granado Espada and Aion (sux). I never touched WoW though. I stopped playing MMOs completely when I started college.
I now work at an MMORPG publishing/development company...Derp D:
I might start playing the game I'm currently "working" on. It's pretty funsies.
On September 28 2011 00:22 darcevader88 wrote: where do i start?
It all begin one dark dark day in the summer of.. yea i dont remember which year LOL
but anyway, my first MMo experience was with a little game called Last Kingdom, which was pretty damn fun at the time (note: i was maybe 12?) i played for like 6 months and then the game was cancelled on me just as i approached max leve l still makes me angry.
From there I moved onto UO where I played on numerous free shards, from arcadia?(arcodia!?) to some smaller ones my friends were hosting/gming (i even gm'ed a few mid level ones at the time) played the crap out of UO for as long as i could possibly play during junior high -> into high school.
woah totally forgot, in between UO and WoW i played a crap load of iRO and to like 79/40~?? or somewhere there as a mage->wiz.. that shit was ultra fun but got SOOO grindy and none of my friends played so it was a lot of solo shiz
Grade 11 in high school i get introduced to WoW (i was also a d2 addict) so i got into WoW beta and i was hooked like a junkie, play the everliving crap out of WoW, top 15 in world guild clearing almost all content (aftermath lightning's blade [necronis]), pvped the hell out of it aswell (my true passion) got to rank 14, had pretty much every pvp item you could want in the game. BC rolls out, I decide it's just not worth it to do that all over again to be the best and quit/sell my acct / move on to RL until sc2 comes out and boom. I keep trying to get out, and you can't DRAGGING ME BACK! (damn you blizz)
US Lightnings Blade? If Alliance, I played on that server for the first 2 years of WoW. Was good friends with Jookya, Ming, Tangji. 3 of the first Grand Marshalls (? equivalent of alliance High Warlords, but back when getting these titles meant 60-70 hours a week of nothing but ganking in open fields) Was in Sigil for a bit. There was a UD warlock whose name I cant remember.. who was known server wide for premade PvP'ing it was like "Constantine" or something, i remember he was UD lock and whenever you got into a BG vs his premades the alliance would just accept defeat and wait for next game lol.
The most epic pvp time in WoW was vanilla seeing Ming and Jookya just 1v5 people no problem. Same with Sunken... aaahh rogues were sooooo badass back then
Also the horde guild SiN OMG LOL. that guild gave every single alliance person nightmares back when i played on that server lol
Yea man, Necronis was my name. I was in Aftermath - I was one of the vet guys on constantine's team (got GM like a month after he did with almost the same crew of guys) we would roll into Bgs and people would just /afk out or stand there while we capped the flags/etc or they'd try and we'd eat them alive.
It was a good time for my gaming life :D and that's sick u played there! :D and YES vanilla wow was epic pvp, after that it got pure SHIT. [ming is a bitch, i use to toy with him in 1s and even use to playo n my buddies mage n smash him LOL, sooo overrated] im pretty sure im listed on the wowwiki for lb server i got gm the same week with my best pvp buddy at the time Terrion. (crazy bulgarian mofo HAH)
haha thats cool to meet someone from Lightnings Blade. I remember going against Constantine's stupid premades lol it was always as soon as we entered "well this is over..." lol.
Was good friends with Tangji a NE hunter who got GM Super fast also. was def the glory days of WoW before resilience shit and terrible balancing
Lol word man. I actually had tangji's acc pw LOL, we use to swap out. Same witha few other Alliance GM/Pvpers, just to fuck around. (obviously not when i was working my way to HW but after i got it n was just pvping for jokes)
god i can't even remember all of the names.. soo many old school vanilla pvpers who were total badasses and made the game soo much fun. after TBC hit i just up and sold my acct and never really got back into it (tried a few times but just couldnt stand it anymore)
On October 05 2011 10:45 Liquid`Tyler wrote: Original EverQuest + Kunark and Velious was da best. And Enchanter was the best class ever ! =]
Can't believe they're still making expansions for that game!
Seconded. Well, apart from the enchanter part - damn buffbots should stay afk outside my group and keep me cracked and hasted dammit, not leech my precious xp!
Oh, and AE groups are totally cheating, by the way.
I started playing during Kunark and suffered as an SK is bound to (with loltastic skill caps, kekeke). Velious was pretty much the pinnacle of my carreer, with epic TOV / POG / POM / Kael / Sleepers raids, a fun guild, and faction grinds. So good. Things started taking a nosedive with Luclin, and while PoP was decent from a raiding perspective, the portalling system that Luclin had started with the Nexus scions was further amplified by POK, which really destroyed the feel of the game world being big. I was pretty casual post-Luclin, although my gameplay got a resurgence during LDON as I've always loved single party dungeon crawling. I quit around DON, when I got into WOW beta.
'course, I still revisit the game every now and again. It's decent for some hours of fun, and the mercenary system allows for some solo or duo fun without being too class-specific. This also ruins the central part of EQ though - the focus on group content to progress forced social interaction and social networking, which made the game more community-like, unlike other hellspawn such as WOW, where all that matters is the individual for the average gamer.
That said, LFGing for hours to get a spot in Karnors, Sebilis or Velks wasn't all that cool, considering my soloing capabilities was limited to high-grey (but still xp-yielding) mobs I could fearkite. One kill, ten minutes AFK while medding. Good fun.
I started my MMORPG playing with UO though, although I never was very seriously into it. I played it at friends' and local net cafes, but not more than a couple hours a week at the most.
During EQ, I also tried DAOC, SWG and AO, but neither of the games appealed much to me and I gave them up after 20 or so hours each.
In 2004, after 5 years of EQ, I got into WOW closed beta and played that religiously until halfway into TBC or so. I started out as an undead rogue (kek, who didn't), but switched to a human mage as they opened RP PVP servers on the EU realms. Had a lot of fun raiding 40mans with my guild, but eventually got stuck gearing people as they kept leaking to other guilds. Frustrating. Aside from PVE content, I spent a lot of time sporadic PVPing - not going for ranks, but more enjoying the community and gameplay. I was a part of the two or three groups that kept working to rank 14s, and I've seen a lot of people go fucking insane during those last two ranks. I hope the title was worth it.
WIth TBC, my desire for raiding was pretty much lost, and I spent most of the time PVPing or doing heroics. The pre-nerf heroics in early TBC were absolutely fantastic (before the weaked mobs and auto-epic bosses), and that's probably the best PVE gameplay I'd had in that game. I did end up doing some ten-man raids, but those were with friends and friends' guilds only, as I didn't have any interest in running or working with a guild at all.
Throughout Wrath and Cata, my gameplay's been sporadic, with random time being subscribed or not. I did have a raid alliance going for early Wrath though, where my guild of social misfits banded up with some other friends from Vanilla to do 10man Naxx and Obsidian sanctum and, when it got released, Ulduar. I later powerlevelled a mage on another server to raid ICC10 with some other friends, but only kept that up for a few months.
For Cata, I was active for the first couple months, but never bothered getting into the raiding game, and due to the queueing system brought forth in Wrath which rendered social networks more or less pointless, I couldn't be bothered doing the easymode Hardcore 5mans any more either. The challenge had been on a steady decline since vanilla, and while I did enjoy the revamped old-world zones while levelling some alts, the absolute nonexsiting challenge has driven me away. That and the collapse of neccessary social interaction.
During WOW, I tried LOTRO, Warhammer Online and AION, but neither appealed to me much. LOTRO and Warhammer online was WOW without being WOW, which made playing the pretenders silly compared to playing the actual, and the art style and unfocused questlines of AION drove me away.
I did play Vanguard though, which was made by the original EQ guys, and I really loved this game. It's a shame I never had much pals playing it though, as its gameplay was far more interesting than that of contemporary WOW-clones.
Never played any MMOs but I find your stories interesting nonetheless. Is it true that Japanese gamers would refuse to play with westerners in FFXI? I also heard that some of the later boss fights could last up to six hours, which I find ridiculous as well as fascinating. As far as I know, FFXI is also one of the very few MMos featuring 'real' housing, even though other players apparently could not visit your home. What would players do if they weren't leveling/questing and wanted to take a break?
Is the community today still active and the game still being updated?
As most know I played WoW pretty extensively back in the day. I played most MMOs actually (UO, DAoC, Guildwars, Anarchy Online, Shadowbane, and WoW). I never really played everquest but I actually recently downloaded it to try out a free "classic" pvp server opening up. Theres actually a thread on TL about this server too.
Sadly though, I think most modern MMOs are really garbage in comparison to some of the titles I previously mentioned. I can't tell if I've just outgrown them or they really are just terrible.
On September 26 2011 10:18 Clbull wrote: [*]Will i ever be able to clear content like Blackwing Descent, The Firelands. Dragon Soul etc without having to commit time equivalent to a fucking full time job? And this counts for both farming the insane amounts of gear needed just to be accepted by a guild, getting a fucking degree level knowledge of boss tactics in each dungeon and raid and being online for 5 straight hours of hardcore raiding when the raid leader demands me to be on.
I'd like to address this point. I'm in a guild with adults with wifes/children, time consuming jobs (developers, IT engineer, soldier etc), we play 9pm/12pm 4 times a week, if you're away you just have to warn beforehand, we kick nobody cause people have a life you know.
We don't ask off-raid farming (selling BoE gets us the golds to get flasks, guild repairs etc), we barely have 10 nolifes out of 40~ raiders (25man raid) It amounts to us having an everchanging roster every day depending on who is there or not, and we manage to kill every boss in hard mode.
So, NO, WoW is not time consuming, that's 6 to 9 hours every week per person. We have been working on Ragnaros HM25 for 2 weeks now, so we are not cutting edge but we still will clean it before the next release and are usually like top25 french. Falling a bit behind at the beginning when everyone raids XXX hours to clean the easy modes (we don't, normal raid times), and catching up to them when it gets hard and they get blocked, when we don't.
Getting the strats is simple if you don't wanna lose time : watch a video (15min), remembers the 3/4 skills your class has to deal with, and play it a few times on the first night. Congrats, you know the fight inside out. And 5h+ of straight raiding is useless, nobody will have his 100% concentration for the whole duration. 3h going 100% is tiring as it is after a workday.
So, just choose your guild carefully... The ones who choose their applies on account of their stuff are either cutting edge or dumb. A bad player in good gear IS going to do LESS dps than a smart player with so-so gear. Just look at them play, the gear will come eventually in a few weeks, you gotta invest. SMART people. Who know how to take care of themselves. That's all it takes to save time.
As most know I played WoW pretty extensively back in the day. I played most MMOs actually (UO, DAoC, Guildwars, Anarchy Online, Shadowbane, and WoW). I never really played everquest but I actually recently downloaded it to try out a free "classic" pvp server opening up. Theres actually a thread on TL about this server too.
Sadly though, I think most modern MMOs are really garbage in comparison to some of the titles I previously mentioned. I can't tell if I've just outgrown them or they really are just terrible.
lol..SUP boss? most fun i've ever had in WoW -> steamrolling the top GM teams in WSG 2nd: Countless hours spent chillin with the guys in vent before/after raids just venting about wipes/stupid people [with ->masq,sinnyin, WAY BACK MARELLO!<, kouhou, aelginar, soo many others.]
And i completely agree with all that you stated above. MMOs to me have completely lost their flare.
Sounds like you (author of OP) had the worst luck/experience in World of Warcraft.
You seemed to have a typical "guild hopping" history, which isn't necessarily bad but sure doesn't sound like fun.
I quit WoW in February because of a new job and also content wasn't what it used to be.
I was in Colonial Space Marines on H-Destromath and we were in the top 50 world guilds during Ulduar Progression. Unfortunatley, many officers were recruited by Gentelmen's club and other raiders (like myself) went elsewhere.
Since Vanilla Wow I have been in 2 guilds, or 2 communities as I would call it. The idea of a guild changed during Wrath at some imaginary point, *cough* ToC *cough*. Guilds before were long lasting communities with grueling recruitment requirements and very high longevity. You enjoyed raiding with your peers because they understood the commitement it took to kill bosses with 25-40 players, as well as the idea of continous growth within the community. For example, it took a lot of effort and time to join a guild, show them your capabilities and for a spot to open up to be a core raider during Burning Crusade raids. It took a lot of bonding and passion to keep it up.
Once ToC and ICC came out, guilds were forming up left and right, spamming trade for spots in raids. Pretty soon it was more "pick up players" than actual guild members in the majority of raids. Granted, guilds like mine were the only ones to kill H Lich King 25 on the server, players were sprawling out thinking they could go from 10man marrowgar to 25man 11/12 heroic in just pugs. Guilds became meaningless. Communities began to simmir and die. Blizzard tried to compensate by "nerfing" the content which can sometimes be viewed as a double-sided sword.
Yet, the game can be fun given the right "community" that you put yourself into. There are a few guilds out there that still are driven to play solely together, and set goals and accomplish them together. I won't be returning because Blizzard continously manages to hinder that aspect of the MMO genre. They continue to ruin the idea of "multiplayer". The sad proof is that I could log on right now on my Level 85, grind random battlegrounds to get my ilvl up, grind heroics to get jp and then soon just do the "Looking For Raid" tool... all while my character sits in the main town... motionless.
I got so sick of that idea that I spent a couple weeks playing Oblivion and refused to use the fast travel system. Now that was an adventure.
*raises glass* Here's to Guild Wars 2, hoping they keep their reward system for exploring and continue to keep their content challenging.
Ok I've played my fair share of MMOs before starcraft, heres my take. You need to like the artstyle of the game, or else everything else won't work. I loved BC's artstyle, but I absolutely hate Cata's, so I can't play WoW anymore. Also, I like playing as cutesy characters or hot girls, why would I want to play as a sexy macho man? I do that all day in real life... I love Terra's artstyle, I'm going to play that a lot either as one of the young girl characters or as one of the nekos, if they add them. More games need to have neko races, FFXI was awesome for having mithra. They were so cool!
On October 06 2011 04:35 Endymion wrote: I'm going to play that a lot either as one of the young girl characters or as one of the nekos, if they add them. More games need to have neko races
Wow.
Nouar, I agree. WoW is unbelievably simple, even at the bleeding edge level. The execution takes practice but
getting a fucking degree level knowledge of boss tactics in each dungeon and raid
makes no sense to me, because every single class is fundamentally simple compared to other games. I honestly don't know anyone that considers WoW a difficult game or particularly time consuming anymore, since mid-BC.
I feel like Blizzard is completely disconnected from what made WoW good in the past. I've been playing for 4 years now and I'm sick and tired of the direction the game is going in and it seems lots of others are too judging by the amount of lost subscribers. I've quit a few times for a few months but this time I just don't want to play anymore unless something changes.
- The world is only for leveling. Nothing happens in it. Everyone stays in cities at max level.
- A playerbase of entitlement was bred in WotLK by the easyness of acquiring gear. This manifests itself by fully ungemmed and unenchanted characters who stand in the fire and whine about everything if they cannot complete it. Most heard argument "I pay for the content." No you dumbass, you pay for access to the servers. The thing is, you had these players in TBC too, but in TBC there were actually more things to do than stand in a city all day waiting for queues to pop so these players weren't clogging up the parts of the game that are supposed to be at least mildly challenging.
- With all the cross-server bullshit everything is faster than before but the feeling of community is completely gone, which is ultimately killing the game because everyone acts like an asshole because no one ever remembers.
- The difficulty curve. Imagine pressing one button over and over and over and over and over and over again for 85 levels and then suddenly BAM! You're required to actually make intelligent decisions, have situational awareness, have at least a resemblance of an optimally played character and have to be able to do more than one thing at a time. I don't know what Blizzard is thinking but having a mindless grind for 85 levels and then suddenly hitting a brick wall of difficulty is not my idea of good game design. This is of course also responsible for the large influx of shit players who don't even realise they have to learn stuff and read/watch guides online in order to succeed at max level. They then proceed to call everyone who suggests that one should do so 'elitists' and instead of learning how to play, start whining and whining and whining to Blizzard until everything gets dumbed down so much that they still cannot play it because they're fucking retards.
Sorry I'm going to stop here as I'm realising I'm writing a gigantic rant. I would actually write a huge constructive thread on the official WoW forums but I can't because the shit moderators banned me for joking while all the people whining and having no clue about anything, insulting others and being trolls get to post all they want.
Wow, I don't understand Ragnarok Online at all. I mean I want to like it but there are many parts that aren't making sense to me. I have tried searching a lot for a basic game guide but haven't really found much useful.
I think the grind is quite bad even at low level, but then again, I am probably doing it wrong because the game guide recommends that your optimal levelling rate comes from killing enemies 10 levels above you. Yet the Creamys (level 22 birds found right outside Geffen) instagib me, even despite my Base Level 14 and Job Level 13...)
By the way, I chose Magician, which probably wasn't the best idea.
I started played Everquest when it came out when i was in 5th grade and have been playing MMO's on and off since then (eq, asherons call, anarchy online, dark age of camelot, wow, ff11).
Maybe it's because I played it when i was really young, but nothing comes close to the same experience as playing Everquest for me. I still remember my first time falling off the top level of Keletin due to lag and being bound across the world. The first time going into plane of fear and needing to find a raid to do a corpse run raid for our initial corpse run raid.
I've played over 3000 hours of Guild Wars. God only knows how much I've played Diablo 2. Thank god I can't find out.
I have nothing to say really, I just get addicted to certain games, which is a good thing because I have nothing else to do besides university anyway.
And I didn't even complete that much in Guild Wars. I've done all of the normal stuff with a couple of characters and gotten a lot done with a few more but I didn't max any of the grind titles. I have some friends with over 10,000 hours of played time that still haven't maxed everything (although that's mostly because they're not very efficient... doesn't take nearly that long if you go for them). Excluding PvP titles of course as those are in a different class.
On October 06 2011 04:35 Endymion wrote: I'm going to play that a lot either as one of the young girl characters or as one of the nekos, if they add them. More games need to have neko races
Wow.
Nouar, I agree. WoW is unbelievably simple, even at the bleeding edge level. The execution takes practice but
getting a fucking degree level knowledge of boss tactics in each dungeon and raid
makes no sense to me, because every single class is fundamentally simple compared to other games. I honestly don't know anyone that considers WoW a difficult game or particularly time consuming anymore, since mid-BC.
just stating what you were thinking!
OK WTF THERE AREN'T NEKOS IN TERA..... FFXI stands alone.
On October 06 2011 04:35 Endymion wrote: I'm going to play that a lot either as one of the young girl characters or as one of the nekos, if they add them. More games need to have neko races
Wow.
Nouar, I agree. WoW is unbelievably simple, even at the bleeding edge level. The execution takes practice but
getting a fucking degree level knowledge of boss tactics in each dungeon and raid
makes no sense to me, because every single class is fundamentally simple compared to other games. I honestly don't know anyone that considers WoW a difficult game or particularly time consuming anymore, since mid-BC.
just stating what you were thinking!
OK WTF THERE AREN'T NEKOS IN TERA..... FFXI stands alone.
tbh I'm a little excited for TERA because it finally is trying something new in (at least the ones I've tried) the whole combat action business. The rest of the MMO genre is fizzled out because no one has the balls to try anything new, so everything is just a "WoW Clone" (I hate that term)... why should I play this new game when I could just play something that's way more developed? That's my problem with MMOs.
On October 06 2011 04:35 Endymion wrote: I'm going to play that a lot either as one of the young girl characters or as one of the nekos, if they add them. More games need to have neko races
Wow.
Nouar, I agree. WoW is unbelievably simple, even at the bleeding edge level. The execution takes practice but
getting a fucking degree level knowledge of boss tactics in each dungeon and raid
makes no sense to me, because every single class is fundamentally simple compared to other games. I honestly don't know anyone that considers WoW a difficult game or particularly time consuming anymore, since mid-BC.
just stating what you were thinking!
OK WTF THERE AREN'T NEKOS IN TERA..... FFXI stands alone.
tbh I'm a little excited for TERA because it finally is trying something new in (at least the ones I've tried) the whole combat action business. The rest of the MMO genre is fizzled out because no one has the balls to try anything new, so everything is just a "WoW Clone" (I hate that term)... why should I play this new game when I could just play something that's way more developed? That's my problem with MMOs.
I agree, I don't just like Tera for the art design, I love ARPGs that are well designed. If the combat is tight I could see myself playing it for a longgg time.
but wow why does every female have huge boobs, at least give us a slider to choose, some guys prefer flat girls, some girls want to reflect their flatness.. and since when do elves (who are meant to be slim and slender) have dd boobs..
Oh man, Runescape.. I spent 6 and a half years on that game, but I finally managed to put it down for good in about March this year. Once you've done everything it gets really boring. I still didn't manage to get any 99s =/ (Although I did get the quest cape at one point)
Here are a bunch of pictures I still have saved for memories sake. Levels, PKs, Quests, and a bunch of other stuff I still have saved.
On October 06 2011 04:35 Endymion wrote: I'm going to play that a lot either as one of the young girl characters or as one of the nekos, if they add them. More games need to have neko races
Wow.
Nouar, I agree. WoW is unbelievably simple, even at the bleeding edge level. The execution takes practice but
getting a fucking degree level knowledge of boss tactics in each dungeon and raid
makes no sense to me, because every single class is fundamentally simple compared to other games. I honestly don't know anyone that considers WoW a difficult game or particularly time consuming anymore, since mid-BC.
just stating what you were thinking!
OK WTF THERE AREN'T NEKOS IN TERA..... FFXI stands alone.
tbh I'm a little excited for TERA because it finally is trying something new in (at least the ones I've tried) the whole combat action business. The rest of the MMO genre is fizzled out because no one has the balls to try anything new, so everything is just a "WoW Clone" (I hate that term)... why should I play this new game when I could just play something that's way more developed? That's my problem with MMOs.
I agree, I don't just like Tera for the art design, I love ARPGs that are well designed. If the combat is tight I could see myself playing it for a longgg time.
but wow why does every female have huge boobs, at least give us a slider to choose, some guys prefer flat girls, some girls want to reflect their flatness.. and since when do elves (who are meant to be slim and slender) have dd boobs..
Agreed, never understood why every female in every RPG has the same size boobs haha.
On October 07 2011 06:55 Clbull wrote: UPDATE: I HAVE TRIED RAGNAROK
Wow, I don't understand Ragnarok Online at all. I mean I want to like it but there are many parts that aren't making sense to me. I have tried searching a lot for a basic game guide but haven't really found much useful.
I think the grind is quite bad even at low level, but then again, I am probably doing it wrong because the game guide recommends that your optimal levelling rate comes from killing enemies 10 levels above you. Yet the Creamys (level 22 birds found right outside Geffen) instagib me, even despite my Base Level 14 and Job Level 13...)
By the way, I chose Magician, which probably wasn't the best idea.
RO can be really hard to get around for a new player, so I don't blame you. Start by putting all your skill points in Fire Bolt and all your stat points in INT, and look for Mage levelling guides. Also one more thing you should know, if you haven't found the hotkeys bar yet, hit F12 iirc.
And yeah the grind's awful, especially on official RO servers. You should try playing on a private server, maybe with low rates (such as 3x, 5x, or 10x EXP rate) so the game is bearable ^_^ www.ratemyserver.net
On October 07 2011 06:55 Clbull wrote: UPDATE: I HAVE TRIED RAGNAROK
Wow, I don't understand Ragnarok Online at all. I mean I want to like it but there are many parts that aren't making sense to me. I have tried searching a lot for a basic game guide but haven't really found much useful.
I think the grind is quite bad even at low level, but then again, I am probably doing it wrong because the game guide recommends that your optimal levelling rate comes from killing enemies 10 levels above you. Yet the Creamys (level 22 birds found right outside Geffen) instagib me, even despite my Base Level 14 and Job Level 13...)
By the way, I chose Magician, which probably wasn't the best idea.
RO can be really hard to get around for a new player, so I don't blame you. Start by putting all your skill points in Fire Bolt and all your stat points in INT, and look for Mage levelling guides. Also one more thing you should know, if you haven't found the hotkeys bar yet, hit F12 iirc.
And yeah the grind's awful, especially on official RO servers. You should try playing on a private server, maybe with low rates (such as 3x, 5x, or 10x EXP rate) so the game is bearable ^_^ www.ratemyserver.net
One has to look hard IF they want to go on to a PS, simply because even with better exp rates, more than a few of these won't give you a chance unless you become a donator.
Also, Fire Bolt + Stone Curse and Frost Diver should be priority Mage skills on a pure Int build. You can spam pots anyway.
On October 07 2011 06:55 Clbull wrote: UPDATE: I HAVE TRIED RAGNAROK
Wow, I don't understand Ragnarok Online at all. I mean I want to like it but there are many parts that aren't making sense to me. I have tried searching a lot for a basic game guide but haven't really found much useful.
I think the grind is quite bad even at low level, but then again, I am probably doing it wrong because the game guide recommends that your optimal levelling rate comes from killing enemies 10 levels above you. Yet the Creamys (level 22 birds found right outside Geffen) instagib me, even despite my Base Level 14 and Job Level 13...)
By the way, I chose Magician, which probably wasn't the best idea.
RO can be really hard to get around for a new player, so I don't blame you. Start by putting all your skill points in Fire Bolt and all your stat points in INT, and look for Mage levelling guides. Also one more thing you should know, if you haven't found the hotkeys bar yet, hit F12 iirc.
And yeah the grind's awful, especially on official RO servers. You should try playing on a private server, maybe with low rates (such as 3x, 5x, or 10x EXP rate) so the game is bearable ^_^ www.ratemyserver.net
One has to look hard IF they want to go on to a PS, simply because even with better exp rates, more than a few of these won't give you a chance unless you become a donator.
Also, Fire Bolt + Stone Curse and Frost Diver should be priority Mage skills on a pure Int build. You can spam pots anyway.
Not true, I haven't donated one cent on all the servers i've played on. skill + experience > donation items. besides there are always people who will buy donations and vend them ingame for zeny. You just gotta know tricks, like BrTalorlg said RO rewards the truly hardcore. Its like the BW of mmo's lol
EPT
maybe it's getting fun again.
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