Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You're kinda flawed in your logic there... Aion does a hell of a job in graphics and allows a huge number of players at one location at once... But I agree that most MMORPG's with kick-ass graphics can't handle too many players at a time *points at Age of Conan*
Sorry, but great graphics = many polygons = you cant have many ppl on the screen at the same time.
Same for world size. You cannot have an infinite number of artists, therefore the higher your polygon count, the less world size you will be able to provide.
Of course you can trick on the pure polygon count with maps, but in the design, to create such maps, you will still need a high polygon count.
Thats why shooters will always have the best graphics. They have a small world size (aka only 8-12 hours gameplay total) and you dont need to support many people on the screen at the same time.
So people who want to be awed by graphics need to go shooter, not RPG (aka at least 30 hours gameplay, sometimes 200 hours of gameplay and more, depending upon game) and even less MMO (aka massive amounts of content, to be played for years).
Before that is was EQ, couldnt quite get my head around the graphics & thousands of people online all at one time. Was great running around talking randomly to people aged 17 :P
Occasionaly AO still brings things to mind. Going around the item-database for some very weird items or seeing someone has done somethings which are truly mind-boggling. Just the sheer mass of items and complexity which depends on using items to get other items to get more items on and so on. I remember the forum drama when one GM stripped one players toon, because even Devs couldn't understand how it could be done legimitely, on other hand they helped all the stuff back later on.
Another aspect is some un-noticed details and such which pop up time to time...
In LOTRo the first time I got to Rivendell. About 4-5 levels below it you get this quest to go there-I died a bunch of times (those misquitos!) before I figured out i could outrun the mobs and the I finally got there and it was so worth it.
Lately in Rift newbe zone-you hear that gong sound and you see a Death Rift open up for the first time.
I can`t really say I was awed, but my most memorable moments came from Everquest and Planetside. With EQ, it was my first MMO. The game just took me away from consoles. To this day, I still play EQ. With Planetside, the insane battles just blew me away. It was probably the most fun I ever had with a FPS.
Rift. It's just plain fun, has a good adult community, the soul system gives hundreds of different class combinations with many many viable builds available to each. Nice graphics and sound as well!
And yes, I was playing it ... for two quite happy years. Sigh.
Originally posted by GPrestige
I was recently watching a video of TERA and couldn't believe how amazing the world looked, [...]
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !
You cant be serious, can you ?
No, you really can't.
If you want amazing graphics, go to shooters. Or at least singleplayer RPGs. MMOs ? Nope, sorry, thats not a good place to look for great graphics, because:
1. Graphics is the least concern for MMOs.
2. Good graphics means cannot support large numbers of players on the screen.
Don't worry my friend, my computer can handle any MMO out there
I was also talking about being struck in awe at the sight or experience of an MMO, and watching that video did that to me - whether or not the other issues you bring up are true (and I won't deny the fact they are, for some people) but it still had the effect.
edit - also I can't believe I forgot Vanguard. Vanguard was the latest MMO to awe me, not WoW. I remember standing near that elf quest hub and seeing the floating island in the distance. Also, standing near Khal and looking up the mountain, THEN being able to run to exactly where I was looking no matter how far... ya that was awesome.
Several times while I play Rift , I was awed when Rifts opened up right on top of my head. A few times I was awed when I came face to face with a tear of a Rift.
I was awed once while standing on a mountain top, looking out over the land and seeing the tops of several rifts doing their rift thing....knowing that at the ground dozens of players where fighting mobs dropping out of said rifts.
I've had several " holy crap " moments in Rift as I would round a corner only to come face to tace with an invasion force of mobs or a npc Defiant raiding party.
Rift is an awe-some game! ....and it's just beginning. That's the best part. In 2-3 years it will be an even more awe inspiring world to play in.
Asheron calls 1 entering Dereth for first time back in '99 awed me but 2.5 years later i realy got the big AWE in AC2 hehe.
I dont blame you OP but i still see you as the new generation of gamers who have this flaw, but this sentence made me puge sorry:P
"by now I hate the flight paths because they just take time..."
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Back in like 2003 when I played FFXI, it was my first MMO and my first PC game. I was in high school. It just completely hooked me, the community was great and it just felt like a real living world. A couple of years later in 2007 I had quit XI and picked up WoW and I got that same feeling all over, with the game not the community. It was completely different than FFXI and just sucked me in. Fast forward to today, I don't play either and no MMO has felt new since.
World of Warcraft - On first boot up I felt the graphics , animations , combat and just the general feel of the game were great. Going across the bridge into Stormwind from the first time was very nice and I always loved the Griffin Flights because they were ridiculously smooth.
DAoC - I kept falling through the world! I was in Awe by that.
Legends of Kesmai - Not really an MMO ( an early version ) but an online RPG with 100+ players. The art and sound effects were incredible and I still think some of the best in any game.
Rifts are fairly awe-inspiring. Having them dynamically open up everywhere and spew creatures onto the ground is pretty sweet.
Aion, though bad, had very awe-inspiring artwork to it.
Lots of WOW quest moments were awe-inspiring in Cata, now that I think about it. Not just the massive way they changed around very familiar zone, but the way certain "battle zones" worked out (Silverpine forest questlines.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
EQ2 when leaving on a sokokar flight from Kylong Plains and flying to all the other flightpaths in the area up there. It was so stunning (I have my graphics on the highest setting). It actually brought a tear to my eye and I thought how lucky I was to be playing. The zones up in that area are just gorgeous.
Another time for me was in LotRO the first time I saw the bridge that goes from the elven starting zone over to the next area. It's a cream colored bridge that is VERY detailed and with the sun behind it it casts the most amazing shadows. I stood there for the longest time just staring at how real it looked. Again...my gfx are set on the highest settings.
I think those two times stand out most to me, but I have seen stunning and beautiful things, including amazing combat, in lots of games. I have moments of awe every now and again in most games except WoW. WoW I'm just burnt out on. Haven't had a "wowmoment" in that game for years now. But even it has some "sweet spots."
RIFT when I saw my first rift. Well that was more like, "Fuck omg....omg," than it was "wow." But it was pretty awesome to me.
I could keep going but this list would get awefully long (get it? lol) .
Moments of awe, for me, are usually more centered around gfx than other things.
Originally posted by Infeareal Last time, Asheron's Call. Going out into town from my humble starter drop off location to realize it was so dark i could not see anything. Equipped a torch and wandered into the wilderness to see what I could find. So many great times just exploring with friends and comming across awesome sights that may or may not have had back story to them. Was not my first mmo by a long shot, but the best I have ever experienced. Monthly content updates, Turbine I so miss the old days, please bring me a new love. Make it old school, make me think, question my decisions, please for gods sake no fucking golden ? and ! and stupid mini maps to tell me where to go, I am not a retard, I can read, and want to figure things out.
I'd have to say Asheron's Call as well. There was something about that game that was such a good time. The sense of community was so much more intense than current MMO's. I remember having such a great social experience in the aspects of friends, questing, guilds, etc.
To this day, I can remember logging in following the monthly updates and being so excited for the new quests and live events.
Games Played: World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Asheron's Call 2 and Star Wars Galaxies.
Guild Wars first time I entered Ascalon after the searing.
Aion (dont hate) Elyos revenge day, 300+ winged elyos, weeks of planning and capturing all three centre forts in 1 night of bitter PvP. Then taking Divine for the first time, watching an endless stream of white wings descend into the core, then getting trapped inside the fortress by the asmos and taking it anyway.
Comments
Awed - from the games I played for me that would be DAoC, Ryzom, LotRO and Xsyon.
DAoC: for the old frontiers and keep and relic raids.
Ryzom: for the living, breathing world with both depth and detail.
LotRO: for the atmosphere right out of a Tolkien book.
Xsyon: for the landscape around Lake Tahoe, the feature set and the RP-potential.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Linege 1 - 1st MMO, "WOW, MMO's are pretty cool"
DAOC 2 - "WOW, this is the way MMO's should be made"
Shadowbane - "WOW, so many amazing classes, but what the hell happened to my guild's city at 3:00 am while we were all asleep?)
Lineage 2 - "WOW, these Castle Sieges are amazing. Crap,I just got one shotted by a lvl 70 Silver Ranger (level 52)"
WOW - "WOW (no pun intended) Quest based progression is pretty cool." (who knew it would be beaten into the ground?)
EVE - "WTF? How the hell do I steer this ship?" - My first sandbox, perhaps why it had the WOW factor.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It may not count but the APB video of char creation was insane. Mind blowing. Too bad that is where the awe ended.
Sorry, but great graphics = many polygons = you cant have many ppl on the screen at the same time.
Same for world size. You cannot have an infinite number of artists, therefore the higher your polygon count, the less world size you will be able to provide.
Of course you can trick on the pure polygon count with maps, but in the design, to create such maps, you will still need a high polygon count.
Thats why shooters will always have the best graphics. They have a small world size (aka only 8-12 hours gameplay total) and you dont need to support many people on the screen at the same time.
So people who want to be awed by graphics need to go shooter, not RPG (aka at least 30 hours gameplay, sometimes 200 hours of gameplay and more, depending upon game) and even less MMO (aka massive amounts of content, to be played for years).
Thats pure unflawed logic.
I've seen some things, man...
Occasionaly AO still brings things to mind. Going around the item-database for some very weird items or seeing someone has done somethings which are truly mind-boggling. Just the sheer mass of items and complexity which depends on using items to get other items to get more items on and so on. I remember the forum drama when one GM stripped one players toon, because even Devs couldn't understand how it could be done legimitely, on other hand they helped all the stuff back later on.
Another aspect is some un-noticed details and such which pop up time to time...
Hearing the music in AOC for the first time and the scenery in Vanguard (too bad SOE gives it no love)
In LOTRo the first time I got to Rivendell. About 4-5 levels below it you get this quest to go there-I died a bunch of times (those misquitos!) before I figured out i could outrun the mobs and the I finally got there and it was so worth it.
Lately in Rift newbe zone-you hear that gong sound and you see a Death Rift open up for the first time.
I can`t really say I was awed, but my most memorable moments came from Everquest and Planetside. With EQ, it was my first MMO. The game just took me away from consoles. To this day, I still play EQ. With Planetside, the insane battles just blew me away. It was probably the most fun I ever had with a FPS.
Rift. It's just plain fun, has a good adult community, the soul system gives hundreds of different class combinations with many many viable builds available to each. Nice graphics and sound as well!
Remember Old School Ultima Online
few minutes ago while testing Black Prophecy beta ,went something like this,,holy f***ing motherslug the mother of all slugs, is this Elite Online ?!
Generation P
Don't worry my friend, my computer can handle any MMO out there
I was also talking about being struck in awe at the sight or experience of an MMO, and watching that video did that to me - whether or not the other issues you bring up are true (and I won't deny the fact they are, for some people) but it still had the effect.
edit - also I can't believe I forgot Vanguard. Vanguard was the latest MMO to awe me, not WoW. I remember standing near that elf quest hub and seeing the floating island in the distance. Also, standing near Khal and looking up the mountain, THEN being able to run to exactly where I was looking no matter how far... ya that was awesome.
-Computer specs no one cares about: check.
-MMOs played no one cares about: check.
-Xfire stats no one cares about: check.
-Signature no one cares about: check.
------------------------------------------------------------
-Narcissism: check.
Vanguard.
Absolutely this ^
Visually speaking, I was probably last awed by EVE. That's about it. Most game really don't awe me... especially MMO's.
I remember running up to the Aviak tree in EQ. The music changed and you could hear chimes in the trees....it was awesome.
Tyrust - EQ
Proximo - EQII
Proximo - Warhammer Online
Fogerty - Vanguard
Asheron calls 1 entering Dereth for first time back in '99 awed me but 2.5 years later i realy got the big AWE in AC2 hehe.
I dont blame you OP but i still see you as the new generation of gamers who have this flaw, but this sentence made me puge sorry:P
"by now I hate the flight paths because they just take time..."
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Back in like 2003 when I played FFXI, it was my first MMO and my first PC game. I was in high school. It just completely hooked me, the community was great and it just felt like a real living world. A couple of years later in 2007 I had quit XI and picked up WoW and I got that same feeling all over, with the game not the community. It was completely different than FFXI and just sucked me in. Fast forward to today, I don't play either and no MMO has felt new since.
World of Warcraft - On first boot up I felt the graphics , animations , combat and just the general feel of the game were great. Going across the bridge into Stormwind from the first time was very nice and I always loved the Griffin Flights because they were ridiculously smooth.
DAoC - I kept falling through the world! I was in Awe by that.
Legends of Kesmai - Not really an MMO ( an early version ) but an online RPG with 100+ players. The art and sound effects were incredible and I still think some of the best in any game.
Last time was Vanguard. If only it received support and a slightly larger playerbase.
We are the bunny.
Resistance is futile.
''/\/\'''''/\/\''''''/\/\
( o.o) ( o.o) ( o.o)
(")("),,(")("),(")(")
Rifts are fairly awe-inspiring. Having them dynamically open up everywhere and spew creatures onto the ground is pretty sweet.
Aion, though bad, had very awe-inspiring artwork to it.
Lots of WOW quest moments were awe-inspiring in Cata, now that I think about it. Not just the massive way they changed around very familiar zone, but the way certain "battle zones" worked out (Silverpine forest questlines.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
EQ2 when leaving on a sokokar flight from Kylong Plains and flying to all the other flightpaths in the area up there. It was so stunning (I have my graphics on the highest setting). It actually brought a tear to my eye and I thought how lucky I was to be playing. The zones up in that area are just gorgeous.
Another time for me was in LotRO the first time I saw the bridge that goes from the elven starting zone over to the next area. It's a cream colored bridge that is VERY detailed and with the sun behind it it casts the most amazing shadows. I stood there for the longest time just staring at how real it looked. Again...my gfx are set on the highest settings.
I think those two times stand out most to me, but I have seen stunning and beautiful things, including amazing combat, in lots of games. I have moments of awe every now and again in most games except WoW. WoW I'm just burnt out on. Haven't had a "wowmoment" in that game for years now. But even it has some "sweet spots."
RIFT when I saw my first rift. Well that was more like, "Fuck omg....omg," than it was "wow." But it was pretty awesome to me.
I could keep going but this list would get awefully long (get it? lol) .
Moments of awe, for me, are usually more centered around gfx than other things.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I'd have to say Asheron's Call as well. There was something about that game that was such a good time. The sense of community was so much more intense than current MMO's. I remember having such a great social experience in the aspects of friends, questing, guilds, etc.
To this day, I can remember logging in following the monthly updates and being so excited for the new quests and live events.
Games Played: World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Asheron's Call 2 and Star Wars Galaxies.
I have two
Guild Wars first time I entered Ascalon after the searing.
Aion (dont hate) Elyos revenge day, 300+ winged elyos, weeks of planning and capturing all three centre forts in 1 night of bitter PvP. Then taking Divine for the first time, watching an endless stream of white wings descend into the core, then getting trapped inside the fortress by the asmos and taking it anyway.
Healing the world since 2005
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.