Tortage in AOC was best starter area IMO. I really like Hathor Zhi (Dark Elf) starting area in Vanguard as well. Music was excellent and the response you get from some of the NPCs are hilarious.
While GW's Pre-Searing Ascalon, AoC's Tortage and EQ's Greater Faydark are still my top 3 favorites, I have to give honorable mentions to LotrO's The Shire and a number of WoW's starter areas.
Turbine did a great job with The Shire, it really manages to portray the atmosphere and happy living what can be expected from the hobbits' home region. A large part of this is contributed by the amount of sheer fun quests that can be done here. Where else can you have a pie delivery game, or be turned into a chicken and have to fulfill a number of quests like that, or a beer drinking/racing contest? Definitely a memorable area.
And of course, not to forget WoW. I don't know if it was increased by me having played Warcraft 3 extensively. But when I first heard the music swelling when looking upon Stormwind or Ironforge or wandering through the enchanting forests of Teldrassil with the hauntingly beautiful background music there, I really got goosebumps. A lot of those starter areas were really well done and fun in the sheer variety of them.
Sarutabaruta please. I could lvl there for years (oh wait, I did).
I don't understand how this could even be possible. Every FFXI zone is just a big empty area with nothing going on except roaming creatures. Not to mention level 1-10 combat consisted of nothing other than slowly auto attacking, followed by the occasional ability once every 2-3 minutes. Now I'm a HUGE FF fan, and I played FFXI for a few years, but even I freely admit this. Surely you had to experience something that offered a little more in another game?
As much as I love your avatar pic, I have to disagree with you about zones in FFXI. To me the vast openness, and the varied terrain (there were actually hills, valleys, lakes, etc rather than a mostly flat land with little variance like most MMOs) were spot on in FFXI. It made the world feel like a world, not like a series of playpens with a ridiculous number of mountains for bars. Its one of the few games that does a great job at using scenery to tell a story as well. Then there's the background music, the game has hands down my favorite music out of any MMO I've ever played ever. It just all comes together to create a fantastic atmosphere in my opinion.
FFXI is one of the only MMOs I've ever stepped outside the city and gone "wooow, this looks pretty" (as long as I dont start in Bastok). I would choose Ronfaure over Sarutabaruta, though (as fun as Sarutabaruta is to say). I like the forest~y...ness of it.
Atlas Park from City of Heroes was nice too. Used to be a huge social hub with costume and character story contests. People were often nice enough to give new players money to help them start out and everything. Also there's just something cool about stopping your first public purse snatching as a new superhero.
While GW's Pre-Searing Ascalon, AoC's Tortage and EQ's Greater Faydark are still my top 3 favorites, I have to give honorable mentions to LotrO's The Shire and a number of WoW's starter areas.
Turbine did a great job with The Shire, it really manages to portray the atmosphere and happy living what can be expected from the hobbits' home region. A large part of this is contributed by the amount of sheer fun quests that can be done here. Where else can you have a pie delivery game, or be turned into a chicken and have to fulfill a number of quests like that, or a beer drinking/racing contest? Definitely a memorable area.
And of course, not to forget WoW. I don't know if it was increased by me having played Warcraft 3 extensively. But when I first heard the music swelling when looking upon Stormwind or Ironforge or wandering through the enchanting forests of Teldrassil with the hauntingly beautiful background music there, I really got goosebumps. A lot of those starter areas were really well done and fun in the sheer variety of them.
Agree with all of that
For Guild Wars 1... ASCALON, my friends and I loved the area. Then, post-searing, we just felt like 'blegh we don't wanna be here anymore'. I recall actually making a new character just to play in pre-searing Ascalon again.
Why do I write, create, fantasize, dream and daydream about other worlds? Because I hate what humanity does with this one.
EQ Feerrott and Innothule swamp. I loved the rain sound and all the animal back ground sounds.
WoW even though I played horde mostly I loved Dun Morogh and Iron Forge as a starting zone.
Those 3 starting zones stick out the most for me but like you said about your EQ experince that the magic will never be captured again. I will have fun in games but nothing like those first moments in EQ.
I can feel your anger. This game is defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike this game down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards towards the Dark Side will be complete.
Asheron's Call because there was no starter area. Pick a compass direction and run until you get one-shot by something then pick another direction and do the same thing. No walls, no zones, no directed paths, no limits other than your survivability.
I was going to post the same thing. My favorite starter area ever in a MMO.
If I had to single out just one it would be Pre-Searing Ascalon, for various reason. But from a proper MMO it would probably be the Dwarf vs Orc pairing area from WAR. You could tell it was made before crunch time and it shows in atmosphere and backstory, unlike every other pairing which seemingly got worse and worse.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
Pre-searing ascalon is and always will be my favorite starting area. I started GW way back when i was just starting high school...broke my heart when ascalon went up in flames. I literally didn't play for a week after that. Then I got all high and mighty and said "I WILL AVENGE MY ASCALON!". Unfortunately the story didnt necessarily allow for that.
Poeta in aion. Not exactly my most favorite but I did like it quite a bit...however after that it was desert, desert, and more desert.
Tortage AOC. i dont think anything could have been more original and fun. AOC was a ground breaking MMO, though some things werent done right at the start and the game suffered heavily for it.
This is going to sound wierd but the starting zone in The Chronicles of Spellborn. That game had a flair all its own. It was ambitious and beautiful. Fun and entertaining and will be sorrily missed v.v *moment of silence*.
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
Isle of Refuge EQ2,mainly because they were my first footsteps into the worlds of MMORPG's.Then off the island to Graystone Yard (home of the Dwarves) and into Oakmyst Forest only to be mauled by Grubdigger (15 ^^^ named bear) while harvesting a log! Happy times
Sarutabaruta please. I could lvl there for years (oh wait, I did).
I don't understand how this could even be possible. Every FFXI zone is just a big empty area with nothing going on except roaming creatures. Not to mention level 1-10 combat consisted of nothing other than slowly auto attacking, followed by the occasional ability once every 2-3 minutes. Now I'm a HUGE FF fan, and I played FFXI for a few years, but even I freely admit this. Surely you had to experience something that offered a little more in another game?
As much as I love your avatar pic, I have to disagree with you about zones in FFXI. To me the vast openness, and the varied terrain (there were actually hills, valleys, lakes, etc rather than a mostly flat land with little variance like most MMOs) were spot on in FFXI. It made the world feel like a world, not like a series of playpens with a ridiculous number of mountains for bars. Its one of the few games that does a great job at using scenery to tell a story as well. Then there's the background music, the game has hands down my favorite music out of any MMO I've ever played ever. It just all comes together to create a fantastic atmosphere in my opinion.
FFXI is one of the only MMOs I've ever stepped outside the city and gone "wooow, this looks pretty" (as long as I dont start in Bastok). I would choose Ronfaure over Sarutabaruta, though (as fun as Sarutabaruta is to say). I like the forest~y...ness of it.
Atlas Park from City of Heroes was nice too. Used to be a huge social hub with costume and character story contests. People were often nice enough to give new players money to help them start out and everything. Also there's just something cool about stopping your first public purse snatching as a new superhero.
It's amazing how different 2 players' perceptions can be, because I feel exactly the opposite on just about every point. I felt the terrain itself was incredibly bland compared to just about every other MMO I've played. I've also never played an MMO that lacked hills, valleys and lakes, or was just flat everywhere. The textures and flora just feel so lackluster to me. I feel like I'm looking at the same spot after every 20 steps.
The utter lack of human (read playable races) settlements anywhere, other than the 4 major cities and 3 or 4 small towns in the entire world, also accentuates this feeling of emptiness and lack of life. There should be settlements and encampments everywhere the environs are hospitable enough to host life, filled with NPCs with interesting stories and reasons for being there. I feel like outside of the main missions, you experience very little interaction with any NPCs--which completely drains the world of life and serves as a strike against every single zone.
Your point about mountains as arbitrary barriers in many MMOs is, to me, offset by FFXI's loading screens between zones. They create a sense of complete world discontinuity for me. In fact, the zones are actually aligned in such a way that, were you to cut out each zone like a piece from a jigsaw puzzle, it wouldn't even be geographically possible to piece them all together to create one whole Vana'diel. There would be many instances where there is inexplicable overlap between zones, and other vast areas of just black nothingness. For all intents and purposes, when you traverse through a FFXI zone loading screen, it is as if you are teleported to another world all together. I'd prefer hulking, impassable mountain ranges any day. That's how it is in the real world, afterall.
The mountains-for-bars point is also somewhat offset by the lack of environmental interactivity in FFXI. In FFXI, that 3 foot high ledge might as well be a 20,000ft mountain. Either way, I can't get over it. And every body of water is shielded by some mysterious magical force (maybe it was the Zilart!) This just drives me crazy. As an aside: I'll never forget the first time I accidentally fell into a pond in the Night Elf starting zone in WoW. I almost jumped out of my seat! I was legitimately affraid for my character, fearing she might drown. At that moment, I was no longer sitting in front of my monitor, mouse and keyboard in hand; I was in the game world, fighting to get out of the cold water to dry off. That is how I define immersion. And this kind of environmental interactivity is a vital component.
I'll certainly agree that the FFXI background music is pretty fantastic (and the spell sound effects are the best of any game I've played to date--I kind of wish I could make my text message ring tone that of getting Signet cast on me ). But I can't help but feel that most zones lack a proper ambiance to compliment the score; and no zone that I know of features sub-sections of the zone with totally different geographical features and a change in music to accompany it. I think that this is one area where WoW really does excel above other games. Every zone is comprised of 20 or so unique sub-areas that are distinct and usually memorable, and occasionally, they are accompanied by dramatic shifts in music and lighting to complete the mood and aesthetic. Add a title that subtly fades onto your screen depicting the name of the region and a subtle sound effect to indicate you are entering a new territory (A la Aion/Rift/WoW) and the setting is perfected imo.
I didn't mean for that to be quite as long winded as it turned out to be; and I definitely don't mean to derail the thread--this is just kind of a separate interesting (to me anyway) side conversation that most of you can happily ignore
As Lineage 1 was my 1st mmorpg Talking Island always held a special place in my memory. I recall being very wary of MMORPG's, I was older than most and kept my gaming hobby more or less secret from other adults. I especially didn't want to talk to a bunch of 'children'. So I had been playing for a few days, not talking to anyone when suddenly another player whispered a hello to me. I cautiously began a dialogue with 'her' and about 5 minutes into the convo she asks, "how old are you, I'm 12!" I quickly said goodbye and logged off. Fortunately the next person I spoke to (while riding the boat to the mainland) turned out to be 32 and we're still online friends to this day (10 yrs later)
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's amazing how different 2 players' perceptions can be, because I feel exactly the opposite on just about every point. I felt the terrain itself was incredibly bland compared to just about every other MMO I've played. I've also never played an MMO that lacked hills, valleys and lakes, or was just flat everywhere. The textures and flora just feel so lackluster to me. I feel like I'm looking at the same spot after every 20 steps.
The utter lack of human (read playable races) settlements anywhere, other than the 4 major cities and 3 or 4 small towns in the entire world, also accentuates this feeling of emptiness and lack of life. There should be settlements and encampments everywhere the environs are hospitable enough to host life, filled with NPCs with interesting stories and reasons for being there. I feel like outside of the main missions, you experience very little interaction with any NPCs--which completely drains the world of life and serves as a strike against every single zone.
Your point about mountains as arbitrary barriers in many MMOs is, to me, offset by FFXI's loading screens between zones. They create a sense of complete world discontinuity for me. In fact, the zones are actually aligned in such a way that, were you to cut out each zone like a piece from a jigsaw puzzle, it wouldn't even be geographically possible to piece them all together to create one whole Vana'diel. There would be many instances where there is inexplicable overlap between zones, and other vast areas of just black nothingness. For all intents and purposes, when you traverse through a FFXI zone loading screen, it is as if you are teleported to another world all together. I'd prefer hulking, impassable mountain ranges any day. That's how it is in the real world, afterall.
The mountains-for-bars point is also somewhat offset by the lack of environmental interactivity in FFXI. In FFXI, that 3 foot high ledge might as well be a 20,000ft mountain. Either way, I can't get over it. And every body of water is shielded by some mysterious magical force (maybe it was the Zilart!) This just drives me crazy. As an aside: I'll never forget the first time I accidentally fell into a pond in the Night Elf starting zone in WoW. I almost jumped out of my seat! I was legitimately affraid for my character, fearing she might drown. At that moment, I was no longer sitting in front of my monitor, mouse and keyboard in hand; I was in the game world, fighting to get out of the cold water to dry off. That is how I define immersion. And this kind of environmental interactivity is a vital component.
I'll certainly agree that the FFXI background music is pretty fantastic (and the spell sound effects are the best of any game I've played to date--I kind of wish I could make my text message ring tone that of getting Signet cast on me ). But I can't help but feel that most zones lack a proper ambiance to compliment the score; and no zone that I know of features sub-sections of the zone with totally different geographical features and a change in music to accompany it. I think that this is one area where WoW really does excel above other games. Every zone is comprised of 20 or so unique sub-areas that are distinct and usually memorable, and occasionally, they are accompanied by dramatic shifts in music and lighting to complete the mood and aesthetic. Add a title that subtly fades onto your screen depicting the name of the region and a subtle sound effect to indicate you are entering a new territory (A la Aion/Rift/WoW) and the setting is perfected imo.
I didn't mean for that to be quite as long winded as it turned out to be; and I definitely don't mean to derail the thread--this is just kind of a separate interesting (to me anyway) side conversation that most of you can happily ignore
Eh, difference of opinion. I just think its nice that it wasn't expressed in the form of "OMG YOU'RE WRONG YOUR GAME IS LAME AND EVERYTHING I LIKE IS UNIVERSALLY GOOD FACT FACT FACT NO OPINION FACT FACT"
Dun Morogh (pre cata) in WOW would be my favorite. And I liked the Elf area in LOTRO a lot. I guess those would be my two favorite starting areas of hte MMO's ive played.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
Comments
Id have to say Elwynn Forest (you all know what game) and the Shire in LOTRO.
No matter how many alts i made id never get bored of doing Elwynn.
Tortage in AOC was best starter area IMO. I really like Hathor Zhi (Dark Elf) starting area in Vanguard as well. Music was excellent and the response you get from some of the NPCs are hilarious.
Turbine did a great job with The Shire, it really manages to portray the atmosphere and happy living what can be expected from the hobbits' home region. A large part of this is contributed by the amount of sheer fun quests that can be done here. Where else can you have a pie delivery game, or be turned into a chicken and have to fulfill a number of quests like that, or a beer drinking/racing contest? Definitely a memorable area.And of course, not to forget WoW. I don't know if it was increased by me having played Warcraft 3 extensively. But when I first heard the music swelling when looking upon Stormwind or Ironforge or wandering through the enchanting forests of Teldrassil with the hauntingly beautiful background music there, I really got goosebumps. A lot of those starter areas were really well done and fun in the sheer variety of them.
As much as I love your avatar pic, I have to disagree with you about zones in FFXI. To me the vast openness, and the varied terrain (there were actually hills, valleys, lakes, etc rather than a mostly flat land with little variance like most MMOs) were spot on in FFXI. It made the world feel like a world, not like a series of playpens with a ridiculous number of mountains for bars. Its one of the few games that does a great job at using scenery to tell a story as well. Then there's the background music, the game has hands down my favorite music out of any MMO I've ever played ever. It just all comes together to create a fantastic atmosphere in my opinion.
FFXI is one of the only MMOs I've ever stepped outside the city and gone "wooow, this looks pretty" (as long as I dont start in Bastok). I would choose Ronfaure over Sarutabaruta, though (as fun as Sarutabaruta is to say). I like the forest~y...ness of it.
Atlas Park from City of Heroes was nice too. Used to be a huge social hub with costume and character story contests. People were often nice enough to give new players money to help them start out and everything. Also there's just something cool about stopping your first public purse snatching as a new superhero.
Agree with all of that
For Guild Wars 1... ASCALON, my friends and I loved the area. Then, post-searing, we just felt like 'blegh we don't wanna be here anymore'. I recall actually making a new character just to play in pre-searing Ascalon again.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
EQ Feerrott and Innothule swamp. I loved the rain sound and all the animal back ground sounds.
WoW even though I played horde mostly I loved Dun Morogh and Iron Forge as a starting zone.
Those 3 starting zones stick out the most for me but like you said about your EQ experince that the magic will never be captured again. I will have fun in games but nothing like those first moments in EQ.
I can feel your anger. This game is defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike this game down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards towards the Dark Side will be complete.
I was going to post the same thing. My favorite starter area ever in a MMO.
If I had to single out just one it would be Pre-Searing Ascalon, for various reason. But from a proper MMO it would probably be the Dwarf vs Orc pairing area from WAR. You could tell it was made before crunch time and it shows in atmosphere and backstory, unlike every other pairing which seemingly got worse and worse.
Pre-searing ascalon is and always will be my favorite starting area. I started GW way back when i was just starting high school...broke my heart when ascalon went up in flames. I literally didn't play for a week after that. Then I got all high and mighty and said "I WILL AVENGE MY ASCALON!". Unfortunately the story didnt necessarily allow for that.
Poeta in aion. Not exactly my most favorite but I did like it quite a bit...however after that it was desert, desert, and more desert.
Tortage AOC. i dont think anything could have been more original and fun. AOC was a ground breaking MMO, though some things werent done right at the start and the game suffered heavily for it.
This is going to sound wierd but the starting zone in The Chronicles of Spellborn. That game had a flair all its own. It was ambitious and beautiful. Fun and entertaining and will be sorrily missed v.v *moment of silence*.
MMO's are the ark of the gaming world. Let it take us in new directions.
Isle of Refuge EQ2,mainly because they were my first footsteps into the worlds of MMORPG's.Then off the island to Graystone Yard (home of the Dwarves) and into Oakmyst Forest only to be mauled by Grubdigger (15 ^^^ named bear) while harvesting a log! Happy times
The Shire in Lord of The Rings online is pretty awesome. I really enjoyed it. The Draenei starting area in WoW I thought was really fun as well.
Neriak Forest in EQ1... boy, that was a very scary place in the days of no ingame maps and very dangerous corpse runs.
agree 100% with the shire.
also , singing island-lineage the bloodpledge (maybe talking island? been 12 years since i played lol)
LOTRO : Shire ,
No competition. Probably one of the best zones in any MMO. And incredibly true to Tolkien lore
EQ1 - Kerridwyn Forest
WoW - Teldrassil (and let me tell you, as a Dwarf those nekid wetland runs were my FONDEST memory)
... and Blackburrow wasn't a starter zone but I'll be damned if I ever forget the scramble when someone yelled train ...
UO didn't really have a starter area. They dropped you in town. You ran out of the town. You were basically dead cause SOMEONE ganked you.
It's amazing how different 2 players' perceptions can be, because I feel exactly the opposite on just about every point. I felt the terrain itself was incredibly bland compared to just about every other MMO I've played. I've also never played an MMO that lacked hills, valleys and lakes, or was just flat everywhere. The textures and flora just feel so lackluster to me. I feel like I'm looking at the same spot after every 20 steps.
The utter lack of human (read playable races) settlements anywhere, other than the 4 major cities and 3 or 4 small towns in the entire world, also accentuates this feeling of emptiness and lack of life. There should be settlements and encampments everywhere the environs are hospitable enough to host life, filled with NPCs with interesting stories and reasons for being there. I feel like outside of the main missions, you experience very little interaction with any NPCs--which completely drains the world of life and serves as a strike against every single zone.
Your point about mountains as arbitrary barriers in many MMOs is, to me, offset by FFXI's loading screens between zones. They create a sense of complete world discontinuity for me. In fact, the zones are actually aligned in such a way that, were you to cut out each zone like a piece from a jigsaw puzzle, it wouldn't even be geographically possible to piece them all together to create one whole Vana'diel. There would be many instances where there is inexplicable overlap between zones, and other vast areas of just black nothingness. For all intents and purposes, when you traverse through a FFXI zone loading screen, it is as if you are teleported to another world all together. I'd prefer hulking, impassable mountain ranges any day. That's how it is in the real world, afterall.
The mountains-for-bars point is also somewhat offset by the lack of environmental interactivity in FFXI. In FFXI, that 3 foot high ledge might as well be a 20,000ft mountain. Either way, I can't get over it. And every body of water is shielded by some mysterious magical force (maybe it was the Zilart!) This just drives me crazy. As an aside: I'll never forget the first time I accidentally fell into a pond in the Night Elf starting zone in WoW. I almost jumped out of my seat! I was legitimately affraid for my character, fearing she might drown. At that moment, I was no longer sitting in front of my monitor, mouse and keyboard in hand; I was in the game world, fighting to get out of the cold water to dry off. That is how I define immersion. And this kind of environmental interactivity is a vital component.
I'll certainly agree that the FFXI background music is pretty fantastic (and the spell sound effects are the best of any game I've played to date--I kind of wish I could make my text message ring tone that of getting Signet cast on me
). But I can't help but feel that most zones lack a proper ambiance to compliment the score; and no zone that I know of features sub-sections of the zone with totally different geographical features and a change in music to accompany it. I think that this is one area where WoW really does excel above other games. Every zone is comprised of 20 or so unique sub-areas that are distinct and usually memorable, and occasionally, they are accompanied by dramatic shifts in music and lighting to complete the mood and aesthetic. Add a title that subtly fades onto your screen depicting the name of the region and a subtle sound effect to indicate you are entering a new territory (A la Aion/Rift/WoW) and the setting is perfected imo.
I didn't mean for that to be quite as long winded as it turned out to be; and I definitely don't mean to derail the thread--this is just kind of a separate interesting (to me anyway) side conversation that most of you can happily ignore
I recall being very wary of MMORPG's, I was older than most and kept my gaming hobby more or less secret from other adults. I especially didn't want to talk to a bunch of 'children'.
So I had been playing for a few days, not talking to anyone when suddenly another player whispered a hello to me. I cautiously began a dialogue with 'her' and about 5 minutes into the convo she asks, "how old are you, I'm 12!"
I quickly said goodbye and logged off. Fortunately the next person I spoke to (while riding the boat to the mainland) turned out to be 32 and we're still online friends to this day (10 yrs later)
"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
I don't know why but mine would be; Ryzom, DCUO, VG, CoH
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Eh, difference of opinion. I just think its nice that it wasn't expressed in the form of "OMG YOU'RE WRONG YOUR GAME IS LAME AND EVERYTHING I LIKE IS UNIVERSALLY GOOD FACT FACT FACT NO OPINION FACT FACT"
Kudos.
I always enjoyed Tirisfal in World of Warcraft.
Dun Morogh (pre cata) in WOW would be my favorite. And I liked the Elf area in LOTRO a lot. I guess those would be my two favorite starting areas of hte MMO's ive played.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
I loved Elwynn Forest all the way to STV
UO-
Got to choose your starter area, and then it was just... holy cow, what to do/where do I go next?
Start exploring...