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The FIVE BEST MMORPGs
UnleadedRev
Member UncommonPosts: 568
Here are what I feel are the 5 best MMOs and why:
1) The Secret World
Based on my experiences in the released version, open BETA and closed BETA:
Its different, and not a WoW clone. A "thinking persons" MMO with alot of puzzles, mysteries and immersion.
No levels!
No cartoony graphics like WoW, instead the world is a serious place, and its the current modern world.
An original story line that is not about Elves, Orcs, and or a bunch of aliens in space.
It can be downright creepy at times and even scare you.
Unfortunately, the game uses tokens just like WoW clones do....so that is the only thing I do not like.
PvP is ok.....when its good its good and when its bad its bad. Personally the PvP in China is my favorite, but is also the least rewarding.
A monthly subscription means I will not be playing this game for more than 6 months regardless of how much I like it.
2) Guild Wars 2
Based on the BETA, I have to say I like this game because its beautiful, fun, and includes the best of old school MMORPGs as well as some of the newer ones
Yeah, its yet another "Fantasy" universe, but it is difficult enough to make leveling a gratifying experience, yet not a grind.
The game takes the dynamic events that made RIFT popular, but does it better. For example, just using the strategic cross roads as an example, its kind of cool to have this fort that sits on a major trade route with caravans coming and going that you can actually do quests for, but also how the crossroads and its fort can come under attack by the AI without warning. That fiight is tough but fun. And these types of dynamic events happen all over its game world. The argument can be made that because these dynamic events pop up in and around the same places can put a damper on it, but there is a reason for that, i.e. these locations are strategically important, thus there is a reason the AI wants it.
No more spamming for groups!!!! HOORAY! This is the big one for me, as I hate spamming and/or seeing others spam for groups. In this game you basically "show up" and everyone is now one big group.
No subscripton!!! Thats the biggest benefit and its not a F2P game either with the typical F2P issues. Only time will tell, what effect if any the cash store will have, but at least you do not have to unlock stuff and places with real money, tokens or gems like the F2P games do.
3) Age of Conan
There is no other MMORPG game universe as violent, bloody, sexy, and true to the original novels as Age of Conan.
As a fan of Robert E Howards Conan books, but NOT THE STUPID MOVIES, I would have to say the immersiveness and bloody violence of combat that is so true to the books is what really makes this game. A great storyline and combat that requires alot of thinking and planning for your combos as well as skill.
Guild Sieges were the most fun I ever have had in 20 years of PC gaming! Even when I was low level I charged my mammoth and made it swing its tusks thru a mass of enemy players!
Unfortunately.......and its a BIG ONE...you can forget about PvP since the game is hugely dependant on gear. Unless you played from release or grinded arena play to get your level (x) PvP gear you will be slaughtered. There are arena match fixing by players who sabotage an opposing team for their guild or pre-made, cheating was bad with combo cancelling and other combo exploits that rid your toon of the time consuming animation but hit with the total combo power/damage.
Also, the great Roleplaying/PvP servers were ruined by players who harassed the RP'rs. Which was a shame because I have never RP'd before this game, but I can tell you the RP was so good back in 2009/2010 that it made everything more fun especially guild vs guild RP.
Those days are over and replaced by the harrasers who would flood all chat channels with kiddie potty talk and other mindless dribble.
The addition of F2P made all this more tolerable, and allowed those behind the PvP gear curve to buy PvP gear with tokens bought with real world money that took you to the beginning of each tier of gear. Thus, at least you were more competitive somewhat, but still....new PvP's and especially those level 80s that waited too long to PvP are hosed.
4) EVE
This game takes place in the future, has beautiful graphics, a huge game world and a huge population. I believe it has the largest MMO population and has been around a long time thru many expansions. It is really a MMO you can wrap yourself around and really really get into.
It has one of the largest stores for books, maps, posters, models, real life clothing, you name it and has an incredible glossy magazine.
SO...whats wrong with it and why is it not number 1?
Well....it has a subscription and it takes a long long time to progress....its open world PvP which is great but once you leave high security space you are on your own. Joining a guild known as corporations in the game is the way to go, but expect a huge time investment to receive a return. Its all about making money. Now for good or bad the games makers say anything goes...scandals, extortion, griefing, evan scams...as long as you do not CHEAT or HACK.
You can even use your hard earned money to buy PLEX which can also be used to buy game time! A guy I work with has not paid a single dollar for his monthly subscription for the past years due to the huge amount of PLEX he has. However he will be the first to tell you how many hundreds of dollars he paid in monthly subscription fees for his first few years!
One nice thing is that your skills will continue to progress when you are logged off, as not all skills are instant and take time, more and more time to learn, but like I said take a skill that takes a week in real time to learn and regardless of whether you are online or not its timer will keep ticking towards completion.
Space combat can be epic with huge battles and huge ships. If you like trading, buying and selling commodities is a fun money maker. Mining can be fun or dull dependng on how you feel about using a mining ship on asteroids.
The inclusion of DUST 514, which will be the first ever FPS game that players on the planets will fight over the very same planets that EVE players have oney making structures on. Thus, for the first time ever, comnsole players will contract out to PC players to protect the space faring PC players structures and other money making machines on the planets surface.
However, DUST 514 is not released yet so we do not know how this first time ever venture will turn out, but it sure sounds exciting.
5) Warhammer Online
Do not laugh! Its the HUGE Warhammer Universe! And is only dwarfed by its futuristic themed cousin Warhammer 40K. Its been around for almost 30 years having been created as a table top miniatures game in the early 1980s, first as a Fantasy game and then as a futuristic one (WH 40K), novels and books galore and even a movie!
So...whats the issue? Well, for one its a monthly subscription game that is PvP centric and totally dependant on population. Sure, you could play PvE, but the devs did not do such a good job on PvP. The game was innovative for its public quests and instanced battlefields in addition to Open World PvP. But all this was not enough to keep what basically becomes a shallow game at max level.
The "Free Trial" which limited you to Tier 1 caused this first tier and small map/area to be high population adn fun, but eventually caused Tier 2 and 3 to become low pop and hurt the game. Server merges were drastic. The only good news is that enough changes were made to the game to now cause all Tiers to have good population, but only during primetime.
The open world PvP which is exciting at first does get old after awhile as you ride from objective to objective or zone to zone for max Renown Points.
I include this game only because it was only 1 expansion and 1 RIGHT decision by the devs to being number 1. Unfortunately, the Devs could never quite make that 1 right decision to correct its shortcomings. No expansions and no F2P sealed its fate. Even worse, when Electronic Arts bought Mythic after Mythic had a brain fart, EA has pretty much abandoned the game. It would seem EA threw some money out to the Devs could have been used to fix this game, but instead created "Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes", which is a fun little F2P arena PvP game that requires you to spend "some" money to be competitive....IMHO the fact that Mythic and Bioware state that Wrath of Heroes is Warhammer Online PvP without all the "boring stuff" (their exact words) just shows you how they feel about the original game....YEAH dont fix it....just create a different game while bashing the former one.
Still...if you are a Warhammer fan, this game is always worth trying for about a month or 2.
Comments
Best MMO is one that was released 2 weeks ago and is so popular that MMORPG.com still has 620 keys available for the free teeshirt?
Pretty strong list thru and thru.
1- Release 1 week ago
2- Not even released yet.
5- It's almost dead (Sorry, but i don't feel it's that great).
There's no "5 best mmorgps". it's all personall opinion. What's awesome to you may not be awesome to someone else. Most would even put EVE in the number 1 spot.
Great list and detailed explanations!
Mine would be:
1. Final Fantasy XI
20+ classes on one character in a huge world with endless content. I wish I never got older so I could have kept playing that game 10+ hours a day. Sure, it was a 'grinding' game, but it was a group grind and you ended up meeting people and having fun. Played for 4 years and still barely touched the surface of what was offered. Had the best story in any mmo until....
2. The Secret World
This game has me so excited and addicted and amazed. The cutscenes, story, voice over, skill system and everything just has me floored. Played over 30 hours so far and still in Kingsmouth.... The unique missions and environments and presentation of everything is a work a of art.
3. Champions Online
The character creation is limitless. Any selection of skills and literally able to make any type of character you can think of had my creativity working non-stop for years. The gameplay is pretty shallow, but it did get better over time.
4. Final Fantasy XIV
Captured the best parts of FFXI and brought it into the new era with the best graphics of any MMO to date (Although TSW may hold this now...). Unfortunately the UI was still as bad it was in FFXI in 2004, but the story, environment, and gameplay is still top notch. I can't wait for 2.0.
All the other ones I've played I don't feel should be on a best list, so I'm going to leave it at 4.
Here are my top 5 of all Time.
1. Everquest-Farming for gear was so hard omg
2. Everquest 2 held my attention for 6 years
3. Eve- EPIC PVP
4. Rift going strong still new x pack about to hit. No F2P
5. Aion- Before the devs made it easy mode. Doing Fenris Armor was hard as hell but very worth it. Lights of Luck camping OMG. Getting your pants to proc ETC ETC. The PVP pre Rift Nerf was nuts you where never safe to just quest I loved it. Even the hard loot tables I liked cause being geared you where in the minority. Seems as the devs made it easier the lost more and more peeps.
I almost think that as MMO Players we do it to our selfs we have asked the devs for easier games and complained XYZ is to hard. Well we are getting easy mode games now and they only hold our attention for a couple months. Then we are geared out and left with nothing to do unless you roll alts. I hate rolling alts =-).
Isn't it free to level 20?
1) The Secret World : The first and only MMO that has put the "RPG" back into "MMORPG" in a fascinating way, and the only MMORPG to transcend into art.
2) Dark Age of Camelot - Used to be my #1.
3) Allods Online (before pay-to-win fanrape happend 6 months into open beta)
4) Corum Online - Little known Korean F2P grinder version of Dark Age of Camelot, with probably the best "strategist" PvP I ever played. The rest of the game largely sucked, except for the grinding, which was fun for a change.
5) Age of Conan - in it's current state, not the horrible release one. Mostly for it's atmosphere, detail and art. Would be higher if not for the terrible PvP design decisions. Rise of the Godslayer has the second best instanced team content in any MMORPG ever, second only to The Secret World.
@ OP Why is GW2 on your list when it hasn't even been released yet?
Anyway my list probably goes something like
5.Tera - A very polished game with a different feel to it than most MMOs these days.The combat system was what initial drew me in, the graphics made me stay a while. The community was very lack luster. I was in a few guilds but none were very social and the ones that were social had been full of trolls.
4.Conquer Online 1.0 - This was one of the initial releases of Conquer Online that had an awesome community, great PvP, Guild Wars, and some of the best rivalries I've ever experienced. Once 2.0 hit the game developers catered to a Pay to Win group called "Bulkers" who could buy pieces of the best equipment in the game for real life money to in game item transactions.
3.Vanguard - The best community I have ever played with. Now with Vanguard being very low on population I haven't played the past few months but when I did get groups and guilds running it was a blast! Exploring this giant open world was amazing.
2.Final Fantasy XI - The best grouping I have been in. While most of the game seemed to be a lot of the grind I had a lot of fun playing with my friends. The story was awesome with such unique races and a great world to play in. I felt most drawn into FFXI's world than any other game that I have played. A true RPG feel for me. Also the class system was probably my favorite part of this game. Mostly ran as a BLM/RM combo but loving the choice of a two class mix change any time!(Now almost considering playing this one again!)
1.World of Warcraft - I've spent most of my MMO time on WoW just because I've been playing since Vanilla and have been on and off since WOTLK. It is easily the most solid game out there. Unfortunately what it has turned into is a que based Dungeon and PvP system which doesn't require you to ever leave your town of choice. All in all though my favorite raiding has been on WoW and some of my most epic PvP moments.
Some other games I feel deserve some recognition would be Knight Online when I played about 12 years ago this game had a very nice world to explore and fun grouping system. At lower levels groups would just farm high level monsters much like Teras BAM system. Was extremely fun but over years of patching it has become very dull.
Darkfall's pvp was really fun until I realized about 3 months later that I probably never stood a chance to the people who had been playing X amount of years. I liked the ship system and huge open world with large scale battles though.
But it takes out the mmo part..... Why not play a singleplayer game?
Popularity doesn't mean somethings good or bad, it just means its popular.
Look at Justin Bieber, he's extremely popular, but I think his music is utter trash, even though other love it more than the Beatles.
Popularity means nothing. If something is good or bad it comes down to opinion, not popularity.
There is a TON of Content you can not solo. That said there is also a lot you can solo. I would put this game on a top 5 list of MMO I have played recently. No way can it be on a all time list. Cause its not clear how well the devs will support the game going forward. If the dump huge amounts of content updates like Rift then OMG this game will be on my list cause right now I am having a blast in Egypt LOL. I just worry about end game/ slash long term appeal of this game. Not knocking the game though I do like it.
Ah, it's just another TSW fan thread - my bad. Wrong place to post then.
People are already in Egypt a few days after launch - what do you think those people will do in a month or so? Yeah, you guessed it - play something else. That game has even less content than SW:TOR - I'd evaluate its explorable world size at like 50% of the SW:TOR galaxy at release last december.
My top 5 MMORPGs?
1- Ultima Online
2- Asheron's Call
3- Guild Wars 2
4- World of Warcraft
5- Lord of the Rings Online
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
It really doesn't, it has the best party dungeons (IMO) of any MMO I've played and the gear progression is the most sensible as well. It feels rewarding without giving you a massive edge over others in PvP. And PvP (In El Dorado) is fantastic, though Stonehenge is kind of crap and is what most people do, giving this game a false rumor for bad PvP.
There is a lot of "MMO" in The Secret World, and all of it is top notch quality.
1. TSW
2. AC
3. EQ1
4. Shadowbane.
5. DAoC
My list;
1.) WoW. I might not play it much anymore, and might not like it as much as I once did, but this is hands down the best MMO I've ever played. It's jaded the MMO genre for me because others just don't reach the standards it has set for me. I've played since it's release, and the longest I've never not had an active sub was 2 months, I'm still currently subbed.
2.) Rift. The cloest thing to meeting WoW's standards I've ever played. It's very similar, but has a few differences that keep the game refreshing.
3.) DCUO. I liked this game for a full month. Now that's an achievement. I got to the cap level and really enjoyed leveling up till that point, but got bored soon after. Still felt like money well spent to me.
4.) Lord of the Rings Online. When I first played it soon after it's release I didn't like it, it felt slow and boring compared to WoW, which I was playing obsessively at the time. A few years later I tried again, and took my time, I read the quest text and really enjoyed the game. But couldn't stick at it for some unknown reason.
5.) The Old Republic. No matter what people say about this game I liked it. I found the fully voiced quests to be refreshing, for once I actually knew why I was killing ten of these monsters, I felt closer to my character than I have in any other MMO due to this too. But in the end it just felt like more of the same, and I quit.
I dont think it was a serious post anyway, i mean, it includes a game that is still in beta, and part time beta at that, and a game that has utterly failed.. it wouldnt have been any less daft if it had included STO.. no actually, that would have rounded it off perfectly
You need to put WoW at #5. Warhammer Online is just god awful!
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
If we take your logic, battlefield is a MMO.
Your definition of an MMO might mean that any game that isnt Eve is really a single player game though
No there is something called a multiplayer game.
1. Without a doubt DAOC. Never played a game where I felt like I was actually a part of a realm fighting for the greater good.
2. Easily FFXI. Would be tied with DAOC, but the lack of pvp made it second. Can t say enough about the world though, I could get lost in it again , and will for sure.
3. Planetside. What a fun epic game, can t really say much more, but the amazing teamwork, and fun this game offered is second to none. Heres hoping PS2 will be as good or better.
4. EQ2. A stupid amount of content, although top heavy, alot can be accomplished with mercs, before you get there. Excellent game.
5. Rift. For newer games, has to be the best out there, with a great dev team, pumping out content.
I didn t say GW2 because it s not released, and until I play it for more then a few eekends, I can t judge.
Your opinion is your opinion, but judging from your top 5, I cannot take you seriously.
#1 is a game that is 1-2 weeks old? Has how many subscribers, a couple hundred thousand? No expansions, beginner content. To get out of the starter/tutorial area takes for ever. Combat is tab target. Graphics are OK, nothing crazy. Questing is old. No way.
Guild Wars 2 is not out yet, but if given time, it could become one of, if not the best. I agree with you on this one
Eve is the only legit contender for greatest of all time. Its been around longer than any mmo, including WoW, and has the most loyal playerbase.
I am surprised WoW is not on this list.
and I laughed so hard when you said warhammer..really? Warhammer? That EA lagfast crap?
God Conquer 1.0 was such an amazing game, Awesome but brutal community, To this day the most skill based pvp I've been apart of, and just overall the most enjoyment I've gotten out of an MMO. It was my start to the MMO scene and I've been looking for something as good ever since, If it wasn't for TQ getting so god damn greedy it would deffinately be the biggest f2p mmo on the market today in the US, And I would have never quit. Even with how much they fucked it up they still have over 90 servers that are still packed with people (mostly Egy's though)... I wish they at least didn't screw up the classic server which was SLAMMMMMMMMMMED with US players for the first two weeks, then I remember someone winning a 2soc bag in the lotto and half my flist logged off and never came back... Simply incredible game cursed with a retarded developer.
However GW2 deserves to be on the list whether it's released or not. In all the time trying to find something as appealing to me as conquer, GW2 has finally done it. The game, at least imo is perfect, The PvP - flawless, The Community - Freakin awesome, The cities - "OMG", The build options - More viable possibilities then I've ever seen, The classes - Balanced (yes I've tried every class extensively in spvp and did great on all but one), The WvW - Epic, The innovation to this stale genre - FINALLY! ...It's honestly everything I've been waiting for, Even if I only played One beta weekend I'd be saying the same thing, It doesn't even take 2 days to realize, I don't care if it sounds like I'm fanboying out either... It's just that good.
If WoW was released today even in its' entirety it would be f2p in 3 months.
Why is it still such a big deal?
This is actually wrong. The longest around MMORPG (with uninterrupted service) is Ultima Online, and it beats EVE by a good 7 years.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
It's all personal opinion anyway. If you are having fun then play it. If you aren't then quit. A thread like this inevitably becomes a "my MMO is better than your MMO" thread. I have never quite understood the emotional stock that people put into MMO more than any other genre of game. It's just a game people!
My top 5, based on how long I played em, how happy I was playing them, and the "awe factor" I experienced playing them. Mind you, I wouldn't play them today, but making my 5 list based on how much I enjoyed them at the time.
Honotable mention. Rift. Enjoyed the leveling up and the novelty of the new things this game offered, until I reached endgame with 2 characters.
5. LOTRO. Was already a huge tolkien fan. So this was a big fit, for a while.
4. SWG. The first few weeks/months, the sandbox feel of this game was simply glorious.
3. WoW. The game that when launched was the next evolution of gaming. The sheer beauty and atmosphere compared to previous games - and the longetivity of the initial good community kept me hooked a long time.
2. DAOC - Launch time with DAOC was awesome. Coming off of a game in which auto-attack prevailed to a game in which mid-combat choices were vital was like moving from chicken mcnuggets to steak at the time. The "openness" of the game, and the tri-pvp game were awesome. I still remember my first frontier pvp kill.
1. EQ - my first mmo was the most addicting, enjoyable, and nostalgic. Getting on waiting lists for highpass hold. Trying to navigate without a durned lightstone. Spending hours atop treetops in KFC. Farming the giants in the expansions. The (at the time) revolutionary bazaar, allowing me to work on crafting, economy, and supply & demand playstyle.
I've played alot more than these, but most of my "glory days" are contained within the top 5 here (especially the top 4). Hoping for future "glory days" in GW2, and if that doesn't work out, I'll try TSW.