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Burned out of MMOGs - what is different out there?
It hit me last night, while delivering quests in WoW - the quest giver offers me another "kill 30 Ogres" quest for a handful of XP? For what, to get to lvl 80 and spend hours in raids?
I started in CoH - had a blast for 6 months. Then it got repetitive. Then it was SWG for another 6 months. Then WoW for yet another 6 months. But now something is different - I like all these games, but they're just repetitive. It's either "kill 10 rats in the basement" or "kill 10 mutant rats in the spaceship basement". I want something different.
I like the feel of a community MMOGs may deliver. I'd like to try something new, but not hardcore. Maybe casual but challenging. I've played FFXI, CoX, SWG, WoW, EQ2, DDO, AO, GW, WAR. I feel that others like AoC, Aion, CO, PotBS and Vanguard would be more of the same. Should I go for something else, like Mabinogi? Wizard101?
Comments
I felt DDO had a much different take on quests, it felt like you where actually doing something instead of commiting genocide on a certain monster race for their hides that drop on every second kill. Sure its heavily instanced, but with it going F2P, there has been a large spike in population, not to mention guilds. I saw you played DDO, but i'm just putting in my two cents.
I too felt the burnout of MMOs, mainly due to work keeping me in it's bony grasp for the better part of the week, and i quit most MMOs because i just couldn't play them, not to mention keep up with people. I found that playing single player games is what will get you away from the MMO norm, minus the people. I've been playing Mass Effect 2 for the better part of the past few weeks. The only reason i mention DDO is because i'm in a guild that still remembers me and my character and greeted me back when i showed up out of the blue a few days ago, and i just went back to dungeon crawling.
Should try out Asheron's Call (they're down for their monthly patch right now).
It's a skill system instead of a class system.
275 levels, so always something to do and their isn't a rush to the end and raid like other games.
They have monthly updates which add content and fixes. This means over 10 years worth of quests you can go run, so always something to do.
Loot is exciting, it is where the best armor/weapons come from.
Graphics are old but gameplay is a lot of fun. Arrows/spells fly straight instead of tracking, meaning as long as you are paying attention you can dodge them.
Devs interact with the community both on the forums and in game.
A big spring update was announced, so it's a good time to get in and get some levels so you'll be ready for whatever is coming.
Hunting and questing are both equally viable forms of leveling, they don't force you down any one path.
So much more, but it's worth at least giving the free trial a shot and seeing what you think, after all it is free to try. I would suggest the Frostfell server if you do give it a shot, it's the most populated non-pvp server.
I've been testing a lot of games after WoW burnout. First that felt somewhat fun was Fallen Earth, but it didn't take long to figure out it's not my thing. After that I got hooked on Darkfall, it's a decent game, but I've spend enough time of my life for grinding in MMORPG's. Vanguard didn't do anything for me. AoC almost disgusted me. Wurm, too much grinding and clumsy game. Ryzom just didn't interest me. Now playing EVE and I think it's going to be the last MMORPG I'm gonna play. It's so much different than other MMORPG's on the market, you can play it casually, knowhow is actually more important than skill points or money, depth is amazing. I uninstalled every other MMORPG from my computer after playing couple weeks of EVE.
I'm not saying EVE is the thing for you, but you might want to try it out and see yourself. If it doesn't interest you (you'll realize it few days of playing), I recommend trying Fallen Earth. If you don't like it either, I think good break from MMORPG's would be in place. I'm actually sort of on a break, I just log in on EVE to update skill queue, and on weekends or whenever I feel, I go explore the world, do some missions, buy new toys from market, go test them out, socialize and so on, for couple of hours.
IMO, everything currently out there is bleh....I'm currently enjoying the real world.
It's free AND has PvP (in the local bars).
If you're a healer or tank class in WOW, you basically don't need to quest at this point. Dungeons are far less repetitive too, as each has a slightly different flavor (at least moreso than you're getting from quests.) Even DPS don't have to quest all that much more to get into periodic groups between bursts of questing. The way my paladin tanks through instances, I'm sure I end up with more XP/hr than questing (although sometimes you get dungeons with green mobs, which sucks
)
If you just don't like MMORPGs, stop playing em or only play the truly different ones. (Darkfall, Global Agenda, Planetside, WWIIO, Puzzle Pirates)
Also, every game gets old. Do you think the non-MMO games you play would remain interesting for the same hundreds (thousands?) of hours you spend playing MMOs? (If so, go play those games. Those are the ones you should be playing! If not, buy a broader variety of non-MMO games maybe.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Go out and buy the platium set of Biowares NeverWinter Nights, then find yourself a good role playing server!
You'll be surprised how many hours pass when your playing thru a story that is driven by a live GM and a good group of players willing to stay in charactor.
And as a bonus you wont get any gold seller spam in your chat!
mystonline.com/en/
There is nothing different... go outside, play the real life mmo for a while... come back when you are ready :-)
Skaroth
See the violence inherent in the system!
Fallen Earth can make a nice change from other MMOG's. If you're an explorer or if you're into immersion its awesome. Its the only game I've ever seen that is 100% seamless even going into an instance. The crafting is the best I've seen since SWG. The combat has a different feel to it.
Wiz 101 is a real nice distraction although its a bit simplistic. Give the trial a shot. Its definitely fun.
I was in the same situation. I was looking for a game to play so I picked up Aion, I played a little in beta but never got like past lvl 7 or something like that. I had 4 toons to the class choice and was leveling one up when I decided I had enough of the KTR (Kill Ten Rats) and Fed Ex Quests. A good friend of mine I have played MMO with for years was playing Eve Online. I told him I tried it and was so lost. But I caved in and gave it another try. The tutorials they added helped a lot. Now I'm going on a month and have 2 accounts. The first 2 days in game I did missions and the tutorials when I received a conversation from a player. I accepted and ended up joining his corporation. The next few days I learned a lot from the guys in it. They ran Mining Operations and PvP Operations all the time. I still had a freebie ship I got from a mission called a Merlin when they said they were going to do a PVP Op. So I ended up joining them in Jita. From there they taught us a few fleet maneuvers to a system that was 15 jumps out in 0.0 security space (anything goes). We had I think around 12 people total in the fleet. Once we arrived to our destination we found our target, it was a Drake and a few other ships and they(The Drake) are roughly 200 Million ISK(in game currency). So we focus fire on the Drake ignoring the other ships with him. We actually destroyed the Drake with a few Freebie ships and a couple of T2 ships. I eventually got my ship destroyed but was able to get back to Jita in my pod. It was a blast.
I recommend this game if your getting burned out. More so if your burned out on the traditional Fantasy MMO's Eve Online is what go me out of my slump.
As far as the casual part it's pretty casual if you want it to be or it can become hardcore if you want too. And you don't have to be online to progress, now if that's not casual I don't know what is.
IN the end, its not the game as much as your local community. If you are with friends you could play outdated MUDs and still have a great time. My suggestion is find where your friends are and go. If your ONline friends have dissipated into the nether of the internet and you cannot contact them, then work more on finding new friends in one game, rather than finding new games
Good Luck
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Going to give you three suggestions:
LOTRO: this game has the same type of quests prevalent in most mmo's, BUT they are VERY well done and there are epic quest lines. Plus the scenerary, graphics and community are very good.
Fallen Earth: Fallout type atmosphere, but everyone is on a single server and its very sandboxish. Plus you can craft while offline
Vanguard: Might as well give it a whirl before they shut down the doors. Amazing world to explore, great enviromental graphics and very interesting classes.
Unfortunatly in this day and age for mmo's quests are going to be the same, with slight varitions. This is especially true for sword and sorcery type mmos. Might have to wait for Star Wars:TOR or wait to hear what the boys and girls at 38 Studios are doing.
I do agree - a strong friend network is great. I recently logged in SWG because of the new patch. First thing I read: "Welcome back, dude!" from the guild leader - that was great. I looked at the roster and saw the old guildmates were still there, had logged recently. But although I love SW, SWG doesn't interest me that much anymore.
As for my real life friends, they're also playing MMOGs - World of FreakingCraft! And they won't leave for something different, because they love doing the same content over and over and over again. Tough, huh?
But I can't depend on them. They like it, fine. I'll try something else, like so many have suggested: Fallen Earth or EVE. Probably EVE, because it's already stablished, while FE is still maturing.
But if someone else has some other game to recommend, please do so. I was even considering Ultima...
Myst Online is back and it's completely different in all sense.
Pirates of the Burning Sea had an innovative combat system and did the sort of thing STO does long before it did.
Check out the MUD I'm making!
Im in the same slump and its just a huge revolving circle and it sucks.
Just nothing.. to...play...
OP, I would echo the advice that was given above: try EVE. But with one caveat: avoid missioning
Missions will seem like the obvious path of least resistance, but you should stay away from them for exactly that reason. They will only lead you to the exact point you are at now.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
AC has been dead ever since the LOTRO team started contributing to it from time to time.
I loved Asheron's call o so long ago, really didn't know it was still running (I played back when it launched) When I left it was for DAoC which used to be a great game but whoes more recent changes kinda killed it for me. Another option are all thouse little F2P games Requeum is strangly fun not somthing that is likely gona be your main game it is more of the same and no where as deep as a AAA game but again fun and free so try if you haven't might give ya a few hrs of joy while you search for main MMO.
Im prity well in the same boat with you, i love the social factor of MMOs but haven't found 1 to fit me in some time. I have played I think just about all of them that are live at this point (I know I must be missing some) including thouse that are more kid targeted i.e. Wizards 101, Draconica I think it was called all the way through to hard core sand box style games liek Darkfall and what not.
Some of thouse "Hard Core" games can be played casualy and be a lot of fun EVE comes to mined depending on what kind of player you are you can be a completly no PvP based player and have fun (i like to harvist, slae, explore, etc) and I such at PvP in EVE but the penalty isnt that bad yes you ship goes boom but you get paid for it and they are cheep enough that unless you dumping the whole bank on 1 ship then your good to go 5 min after your nuked.
Vanguard though its dieing; has been is fun again not sure if you find it a perminet home or not and last and some might laugh but Horizons or what the hell ever its callign its self now Istaria I think it is www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/17 theres the MMORPG.com page for it.
Horizons (Istaria if you prefer) has a lot of intresting concepts with there crafting not to mention you can play as a dragon which is cool to say the least, they have a free demo mode like thing and under new managment as of a year or so ago; since that change it has gotten a lot better and they are putting out new content for it so its not "dead" though not main stream either I recomend any one who hasnt tryed it to give it a go, it is old and its UI is . . . anoying, the rendering engine is the most ineffcent thing I have ever seen but it manages to be prity considering its age and all just recently they upgraded it to support Vista (should play nice on Win 7 as well) it can be a really deep game if you can get into so this really could be your home the community is small but very friendly as far as the questing goes though it is traditional the *new* you are looking for will come from the dragons of course as well as the crafting and the method of implementing classes (last I played) you could switch your class some skills cary over some dont so basicly you can 'master' all the classes (humaniod only) dragons work diffrently all together really to much to discribe here I recomend checking out the main site if your intrested at all www.istaria.com/
I am going to assume that when you played swg it was after the NGE rather than something like pre-cu. If I'm wrong please let me know.
In my personal and admittedly elitist opinion, I do not feel that you have played a mmo yet. All you've played are "wow clones". You've played morpgs, rather than mmorpgs (e.g. your games miss the massive part). All of the games you mention are missing stuff I find very important to mmos such as a player economy, player cities, player housing, player merchants, meaningful pvp, player politics, etc. None of these items make a mmo in and of themselves, but these components are what provide variety to mmos and make them massive. Without these features, you're playing nothing more than a 3D version of Diablo, and a poor one at that (with the bop mechanic).
I'm sure many will find me full of crap, but I invite you to not dismiss the idea out of hand. The fact is that mmos have regressed. They may be flashier and shinier and have improved on base features, but they are missing all the stuff that makes them massive.
I'll finish by echoing some other posts. Games to try are Eve online, Darkfall, and Fallen Earth. There are probably some others that break the mould, but Eve's a pretty good game to get your feet wet with a real mmo (although eve is not for everyone). I personally am not a fan of the first person view, so I skipped out on DF and FE, but they are both supposed to be true mmos with lots of good sandbox features. I hope you'll find a good new game from the suggestions in this thread (although to be blunt there just aren't many good mmos out right now).
Leveling in wow (at least for me) is just a boring necessary proceedure so i can get 80 lvl to start raids and farming bg's and wintergrasp so i can become as soon as possible competitive in arena. Ive notice u said for what? to spend hours in raids.
In all mmorpg's endgame is raids... That tell us you dont like pve. I dont see u refereing to wow's pvp so i take it you are not pvpier either.
Hmm .. Perhaps you would like an mmorpg that would deliver a seense adn fewling that you are a part of living world ,with roleplay,adventuring eploring etc etc.
If that be the case you have to wait for an Ultima online revamp, or join Ultima online with graficks being well not exactly 3d as u may got used to or... take your chances and join Darkfall. It has agony ,adrenaline rush,aparently ppl will try to kill you and steal your horse and stuff,but IT IS after all something DIFFERENT than wow,eq,lotro,aoc.ddo,war,aion etc etcetcetc.
You will explore,adventuring in the wilds,
It has pve, it has pvp,combat requires some skills from your side, mobs are much smarter and harder than wow style mobs pew pew auto attack ,next next,etc etc