Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
LFG
I have played Entropia Universe, aka PE ( project entropia ) since 2003. I work as a content developer in Second Life & Blue Mars.
I feel I have painted myself in the corner a bit...
For the longest time I have been spoiled by open end free roam of EU, and the ability to create stuff that appeals to me in my work. But at the end of the day, i still want to enjoy a virtual world like I used to.
- SL / Blue Mars = 3D chat, social, nothing to do.
- Entropia = massive cost, large deposits sometimes in a month that could pay for anyones favorite subscription mmo for a few years.
- Eve = time consuming... space ship flight.. need a more avatar approach rather than strategy, isk farming.
- Korean MMO's = Final Fantasy 90's style knockoffs, to many youngsters, and you kill the same monster 3,000,000 times for a tooth pick... one step away from making kids foreign slave labor.
- Mortal Online - Buggy, great concept.. but plagued with far to many problems to be playable... I can't believe they released it all ready.
- guild wars - was great in the beginning... expansions introduced linear location progress.. can't go here until you defeat this quest in which in our new expansion everyone starts the same lvl as the guys that played for a couple years..
- arch lord, lineage, atlantica... grind grind grind... poor character animation and clunky system.
War of World Craft - Last and not least the Lisa frank inspiration of Crayon Spewing particle spam and strobe like madness...
So... What I do like... what I am looking for...
1. Non instance, free roam open space movement, and feel - similiar to entropia
2. Realistic colour, and feel... I didn't log on to play Wold of War Pony's.
3. Fluid game controls, game mechanics, and inventive system for loot, and character progress.. rather than age old.. sword, bow, wand humper...
P.S. don't mind paying a subscription fee, would want a free trial first, graphics gotta be nice..
Any hope, or am I just as doomed as I feel until the next best shiney epic fail?
Cheers!
____________________________________________________________________________________
Games Out of the Race:
Entropia Universe
Darkfall
Mortal Online
Luna Online
Flyff
Eve
World of Warcraft
Arch Lord
Atlantica
Allods
Lineage 1 + 2
Final Fantasy VI
Ryzom
Dungeons and Dragons Online
Perfect World
Second Life
Earth Eternal
Fallen Earth
Guild Wars 1 + 2
City of Heroes/Villians
RF Online
Asheron's Cal
Ultima Online
Comments
have u looked at fallen earth? theres a free trial, it meets most of your criteria i think.
IF THE ONLY DEFENCE FOR CRITICISM OF A GAME IS CALLING SOMEONE A TROLL OR HATER, THAT SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE GAME
aye, game had great concept, had high hopes... but after I tried it out seemed like really cheap fallout 3 with inferior quality or controls.. and annoying narrative.
Trial play was a bit disappointing unfortunately...
Ryzom or APB interest you?
I looked at APB, and is it released or open beta? Not sure if I am into the whole GTA scene, though I was attracted to the character customization... I will look into that.. until then lets keep looking...
Ryzom just looks like WoW's ugly rejected half incest autistic step sister.
Edit: no beta key invitation.. so will have to either wait for open beta, or release for APB.
No other suggestions? Guess everyone else stuck in the same rut.
" 2. Realistic colour, and feel... I didn't log on to play Wold of War Pony's. "
If I don't like WoW or Allods, I won't like ryzom, I can tell just by the looks of it, and from what I have read, it is simply to similiar. Also have viewed game play footage, it is one of the exact type of games I would like to avoid.
It might not meet your criteria of fluid game controls though. =/
And it's damn time-consuming. XD
Going to give the free 14 trial a fair shot, but so far the only thing time consuming is the time to download via torrent, and patch.
So far, 9 hours and counting, with atleast 1 more hour to go... ridiculous delivery system, but if the game is good then worth it.
Well as i said I would give Darkfall a fair shot.
Unfortunately it wasn't right for the money. While it is a game where the style is a bit to cartoonish it wasn't to bright, the graphics were pleasant and still enjoyable. Animations need work, and mobs rubber banding movement due to server lag is an issue. Overall it is a nice game, but just not quite nice enough to pay 15USD$ per month.
The largest pitfall of Darkfall is the small community user base. You have many new players in the human lands, and then many players farming the noobs for their gathered items, such as ore, regeants etc. Outside of this small area though the game is some what stale and empty. The average user base seems very young, and if they aren't their mother never taught them manners, as they make the residents of even anime games seem some what mature.
Maybe this game will be worth revisiting at a later time.. however for the time being it just isn't solid enough to satisfy me...
So once again lets keep looking...
Asheron's Call if you want a sandbox - Darktide server for FFA PvP
Give it a try if you haven't.. you can actually dodge arrows and magic via movement (in other words.. it's not a /cast spell -> /it hits you WoW type deal)
Also.. the quests are worth looking into - they aren't handed to you
You can choose what type of character to be (you pick everything from starting stats to skills to how much experience you want to put in everything) It's been updated quite a bit since launch and there are 2 new races that recently came out within the past couple months*.
*There are monthly content updates
The major downside is the population, secondly.. the grinding, and third.. the fact that it is outdated
The terrain also just received a nice overhaul
ASC is far to outdated graphically.. played it before, been there done that, just forgot to add it to the list.
bump...
Everyone given up?
If you're into sci-fi space games...DarkSpace is alright, it's not very open world considering you play within a constellation in the server and all you do is target and shoot to upgrade your ship. Of course, there aren't any walls to the server...you just keep travelling through interstellar space (I've tried it....not sure what's on the other end
). Definitely one that satisfies #1 and 3 (maybe 2).
There I do notice a divide in fantasy and realism in terms of colour so I can only recommend a FPS or strategy genre for real colours (maybe gore).
Closest thing I know that does a bit of all you want is CrimeCraft, however I don't really want to suggest it highly. It's got guns, blood, crafting, coop/pvp and a decent community (at best). Downside, instanced coop pvp with a 3D lobby to run around in and hand with your fellow "gangsters"; as to that, horrid customer support if you go F2P (if you try and file a support ticket, a paid representative will respond back and tell you to refer to forums or knowledge base, so either stupidity from trolls and flamers or merciless stupidity of the knowledge base).
Other things I could plug that you should check out would be Black Prophecy and Perpetuum. For now, I say you look though the game list and try out random MMOG's and start beta game stalking.
Sorry I can't help much.
To the caterpillar it is the end of the world, to the master, it is a butterfly.
Yeah I feel your pain. For the most part with the exception of a few mmo's I believe developers have become comfortable with the same old, same old. While console games push and push one of my favorite developers being bethseda for their work on Oblivion & Fallout 3. MMO's and the people that create them are competing against a flood of weaker opponents which appeal primarily to fans of flash bang particle effects, Over the top armour design where your character looks more like a traveling circus than a warrior and weapons that while I don't mind some exotic design looks like ultra exaggerated FF series concepts.
I am right there with you. Tired of pretty much everything. I sat at my comp a month ago trying to level a new toon in DDO and thought why am I doing this quest for the 100th time? So I started my own quest for a month to find something that fits your criteria for myself.
FO was good to a point then was a ridiculus series of the same quests from one city to another city to increase skills. Snore.
COG- was good to, great graphics and concept. Then I hit level 3 and realized it would take days to get to the next level because of the absurd low exp rate.
MO-heard wonderful things about it. God is it bad, really bad. I pulled up the character inventory screen and it looked like something done 10 years ago. DAoC when launched looked better. So I figured it was new give it a shot, ok so I tried to load woodcutting into my hotbar. Followed the directions, it took 20 minutes to do because it was so bad. Plus the character models look like crap.
APB-also looks good, also looks like an endless series of boring quests.
AoC-tried it at launch, couldnt play it because of graphics. Tried again because I heard they "fixed it" Still can't run it on an improved machine, its the ONLY game I can't run.
EvE-Spend three years of your life to raise skills to not even coming close to someone in PvP, no thanks. Now if they launched a NEW server I would be there.
AION-blech
DF-Ok, gave this one a shot, and will give it a month, but I am already seeing myself hate this one.
LOTRO-I stopped at Moria with a RK, Capt and Hunter maxxed out, I dont want to pay for this so I may have to wait for the F2P
AC-I have never played it, loaded it up, and my God its graphically horrible. Great playstyle but my God. Turbine re-relase this SAME game with updated graphics, you would make a killing.
SWG-also never played this one, got 10 minutes in said no way to old.
It got so bad I reloaded Portal last night, lovin it.
I am closing this thread, as I don't think the game I am looking for exists. I appreciate everyones help so far in trying to help me find something for me to relax with. The community here is terrific, and reading the post of people really shows no one is alone in the feeling about the current state of mmo releases.
I have decided instead of waiting and sitting back hoping for someone to get it right, I can use my experience in the industry to achieve what I feel others have failed to do. Its going to be a long hard, rough ride.. and this isn't even the beach to the ocean on the edge of the tip of the iceburg... but it is a starting point.
Follow my progress here @ ;http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/perefim/062010/6333_Breaking-the-Mold-Part-1-Is-it-impossible
Before you close, just 2 things id like to touch on:
1) RYZOM - don't let the initial look of the game fool you, it actually is really very good, especially compared to other sandbox games. At first I was put off by the look of the game too and never bothered to look into it, but after seeing most people's response to the game i looked into it a bit more an dfinally gave it a try. I don't currently play anymore, mainly out of my habit to play so many different games and setting some good ones aside in the process.There were a lot of things in it that were very refreshing though.
- The art style while at first does remind you of cartoony styles like WoW, is actually quite different and unique. As I said, my first thoughts were much like yours, but once I got past that, i found it to be quite good
- Community in the game is absolutely awesome, with active GMs who actually converse like normal people with their players during many occassions that i was on.The players in the game are also very helpful and friendly. I don't really recall anyone acting like a stereotypical "wow kiddie" or anything along those lines.
- The skill system was awesome, especially from a sand ox aspect. Rather than regular preset skill sthat you buy or gain through leveling, you earn various pieces of skills referred to as Stanzas. The Stanzas work in a way kind of like alchemy or chemistry would. The Stanzas are like the individual ingredients that make up the properties of the skills covering different aspects such as the type of skill effect (ie: fire, ice, physical, healing, buff, debuff), the power level of the skill, the target(s) effected, the cost (consuming HP, MP, Stamina), and a few other details. You manually combine these into a macro form and set these macros as your skills on the hotbar. The system allows you to create cutom built spells/skills, and not only for combat, but also resource gathering and crafting skills.
- AI - the AI in Ryzom is also one of it's high points with life around the world actually acting differently and reacting to you and other things in the environment rather than the typical mob AI which consists of standing still or walking in a preset path and just aggroing players
- The World & Lore - The lore involved in the game, as well as the actual size of the world and the very unqie feel to the different areas of the world are a very nice touch too if you appreciate those aspects of games.
You may end up not liking the game in the end, but they do have a Free Trial just like Darkfall, and it really is a pretty unique game and rather enjoyable.
2) I understand a lot of peoples reasons for not liking GW1 because of some of its features, but have you actually read up on all of the details they've been releasing on GW2 the past like 2 months like the Dynamic Event System, Personal Story,Traits, the Alphabet / Language aspect of the game, and various other details that have been mentioned but not covered in depth yet like the housing, PvP in The Mists, environmental weapons/skills, interaction / combination of skills used by multiple players, the aucion & market system through the web, etc? If so, and you still don't find it appealing that's fine, but I have seen many others just assume more of the same from GW1 without having any idea about some of those details. If you haven't read up on it all you really should, they're adding in quite a bit of innovation and basically keeping nearly everything good from GW1, adding some of the most desired features from other MMOs, and also putting in things that haven't been done yet. I suggest reading up on much of it on these forums and the news postings and/or the official website. I didn't pay much attention to GW or Arenanet in the past, but GW2 has quickly become my most anticipated game in years and that's with a lot of information yet to come from the devs.
Have you looked into WURM online? I haven't played it myself yet, but I have read a lot about it, and it sounds like it might the sandbox type of environment you're looking for.
It's initially free to play, although eventually you pay a small one-time amount to move out of a beginning area.
http://www.wurmonline.com/
I have seen a few MMO Reviewers who have played countless MMOS (and seem kind of burned out on the norms, while still in love with the genre) list it as a favorite.
Here are some reviews that are a few months old:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/03/24/pitchfork-media-a-portrait-of-wurm-online/
http://www.massively.com/2010/04/20/free-for-all-a-look-at-wurm-online/ (and http://www.massively.com/2010/06/01/free-for-all-my-top-five-f2p-games/)
Vanguard? Graphics might be the issue, don't look cartoony to me but are dated. But very open gameplay style and interface seemed intuitive enough to me. Diplomacy and crafting are mini games, look for some screenshots of that.
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga