Help me find a game without raiding.

VicusEQ

I find myself in a weird situation.  Been raiding for the last 15 years, semi-hardcore and hardcore, off and on but I feel like that switch has finally decided to stay in the off position.  I find myself still wanting to play but soon as I hear the word raid I lose all will to play.  I am looking for a game to play that has a lot to do outside of raiding and random LFG ques.  I'm not huge into questing or pvp but if the story is captivating or the pvp isn't some imbalanced machine then I'm game. 

Been randomly thinking about Ultima Online again just because so much to do that it would atleast blow a month or two heh or even Everquest because grouping in the game is actually very social minus the random group is formed and dropped into a dungeon for 15 minutes and no one talks to each other.

What games are out there that don't focus on raiding and also don't require a massive time sink to level to get to the content?

P.S. I have probably played every mainstream MMO over the past 20 years, so looking for those hidden gems I haven't dug deep enough to find.

redneckgamer

so your looking for something you level quickly to endgame but not have raiding at endgame.  I was going to suggest the secret world since the quests are interesting but if you are just blowing through to endgame you are stuck with raiding i guess.  I never look at a game like " i got to get to max level to see the content"  I'm more enjoying the content as i go.  this is mainly because, like you, I don't enjoy raiding and too often that's what you are rushing towards at endgame.  why not slow down and enjoy the content of games prior to whats at "the end"  just my 2c.

 I'm sure there are games out there that have other activities at endgame.  I'm just one of the minority that enjoys the journey more than the destination

Kyleran

EVE comes to mind, also DAOC on recently relaunched free shard (pre TOA, no raiding)

Albion online in July perhaps?

aslan132

Not much to choose from with what you are asking for. Sounds like you dont want raiding or LFG, and you are not that big on PVP or questing. What you are asking for is a single player game, you would love Skyrim, or Fallout, depending on whether you like Fantasy or SciFi more. Really any open world game would work. 

Honestly, if you dont want to raid, or LFG for dungeons, and you dont care for PVP, there really is no reason to play a game with other people. Those are pretty much the only reasons to have other people there. 

Edit: Pantheon may be up your alley when it comes out, since it should encourage grouping in the open world, outside of dungeons. But its too early to tell if that makes it into the launch version (it can easily get dumbed down by then). If you want something now, ESO may be your best bet. Leveling isnt all that hard, but its also not all that important, as there are plenty of things to do as you go, and everything scales to your level pretty well. Also, it is more fun if you party up and go through content even though it is not required. Its basically like Skyrim but with other people (which sounds closer to what you want, solo friendly but with other people). Good luck

Daakkon

Neocron. It's like System Shock, Deus Ex, and Blade Runner had an orgy and made an MMO. It's old but still awesome!

VicusEQ

redneckgamer said:

so your looking for something you level quickly to endgame but not have raiding at endgame.  I was going to suggest the secret world since the quests are interesting but if you are just blowing through to endgame you are stuck with raiding i guess.  I never look at a game like " i got to get to max level to see the content"  I'm more enjoying the content as i go.  this is mainly because, like you, I don't enjoy raiding and too often that's what you are rushing towards at endgame.  why not slow down and enjoy the content of games prior to whats at "the end"  just my 2c.

 I'm sure there are games out there that have other activities at endgame.  I'm just one of the minority that enjoys the journey more than the destination

I never said rush to endgame to find myself with nothing to do.  Not really sure where you made these massive assumptions about me.  I have played TSW, have a lifetime account and completed the entire storyline (which is amazing) and raided, but once you do that there is NOTHING to do.  Nightmare dungeons over and over and over.  I stated that I wanted something that wasn't a huge time sink just to get to content.  Like Ultima Online.  Content starts right away.  GW2 for example.  Leveling is fast and easy but still has a lot to do on the way up ect.  I just don't want to have to get to max level to be able to do stuff like Aion/WoW/ect. 

But as someone else suggested, I think I am looking for more sandboxish but just hasnt been any in awhile that has caught my eye.  Darkfall was the last that had potential.  I didn't say I didn't want pvp just dont want extremely imbalanced (like Aion).  I never gave Eve a shot but I'm told that is a massive time sink.  Is there any Asian MMO's that I should look into?  I've been thinking of Eso and I didnt know DAOC introduced a new shard?  Is this ran by the company or is this a player ran shard?  That would have my interest.  Was thinking of EQ because the grouping is very community based/talking but when I hit max level....raiding is really all that is left so little wary.

Quizzical

A lot depends on what you're looking for.  Have you considered playing a game that does have raiding, but just enjoying the ride on the way up and quitting the game when all that is left to do is to go raiding?

If you want something really different, you could give Uncharted Waters Online a go.  That doesn't have a clear demarcation of "now you're at endgame", but it does have enormous amounts of wildly varying content--so much so that if you play for a month, at the end of that month, there will be major game mechanics that you're entirely unaware of.  And furthermore, it's not just endgame stuff that you haven't gotten to yet, but things you could have been doing early on but didn't because you didn't know the game had them.