LF an addictive, hardcore, non casual fantasy game

Xoshua · March 2013

I've been on this thread so many times iv'e lost count. I'll list the games that I played and the time length so you get an idea of what I'm looking for.

WoW - played right before BC came out. Managed and ran a raiding guild. Played for roughly 2 years. Stopped around the Lich King. It was fun, I loved the community involvement. I loved how everyone was non selfish and helped out other players. Loved end game raiding.

Shadowbane - Played for almost a year before they stopped it. I loved the class choices. It lacked Pve but the pvp was awesome. Player city building was epic, building a city and watching it and having it as your own city was the best idea a pvp mmo could do. It was fun farming players after theyve been hunting a rune. I also love hunting notorius monsters for certain items and runes, loved it.

EQOA- Everquest for ps2 was my first mmo, it was so fun. I loved the graphics and the whole system was fun.

FFXI- was my 2nd mmo, I played it for years. I went on and off but probably totalled over 8 years player ffxi. Everything about ffxi was awesome. The party system, the job system, the quests, the NM's were SO fun to hunt. The community was awesome, everything was perfect about ffxi. I use to watch the live came before I played it, so much memories from FFXI. FFXI was my perfect MMO by far. The jobs were perfect, real names too and variety. Paladins, whms, rdms, ninjas, rangers, you get the point, they were nicely made.

FFXIV- it was a disapointment. It had nice graphics but graphics dont make a game. It strayed far from FFXI and it was a huge let down. I was expecting ffxi with better graphics and new areas but keeping the same job system, same jobs, etc. I played for like a month and said nope. I know ffxiv: arr is coming out but Im thinking itll just be ffxiv with the dev team trying to show off to casual players instead of the ffxi playerbase that made SE mmo's.

EQ2 - played for 3 months. I just couldn't get into it. It's graphics were nice but something about it just turned me off. It was fun for a bit but became stale. It feels like if your not in a guild, players dont even communicate to one another they just do their quest and log off or move to the next place.

LOTRO- I played for like 2 weeks when it was coming out. I couldn't get into it to well but maybe its better now.

GW1- it was fun for a few weeks but it didn't have a class variety and it was all single player zoned.

TSW- played from released up until they released new york instance. It was a nice change, its quest system was fun and the atmosphere was fantastic. Players actually communicate with one another which was a nice change. It just got repetitve after yours skills are maxed and your done all the instances.

I've played some other mmos too that i didnt mention such as entropia universe, which was fun but cost too much. Runescape was fun, i tried the 2007 servers but just couldnt get into it since it wasnt the real servers. Vanguard was fun but lack of players turned me off. I honestly don't know which game to go for. I'm looking right now at the top list of games out but they all seem like th devs made it for the casual player in mind. I feel like when the devs started to catour more to the casual gamer instead of the hardcare gamers, the mmo genre turned. It's like playing a moba to be honest. LoL and dota was fun for a short while but without character customization and immersion it's just not appealing.

Don't get me wrong all the games mentioned are good games but I'm looking for a game I can play for hours without getting bored. I prefer fantasy over sci fi if possible. I also like games that have a nice class sytem like warrior, paladin, thief, ranger, etc. It turns me off when games have crazy class names like lancer, tanker, silly class names.

So what do you suggest? Which game is a solid game for the hardcore gamer not the casual solo type. It's MMO for a reason, why would I play solo in a massive multiplayer? It doesn't make sense. Anyways, let me know.

apocoluster · March 2013

HKO for a change of pace.

FromHell · March 2013

the most immersive and most hardcore low fantasy MMO is Age of Conan, period, if you haven´t tried it, do it now.

You want a weird unusual class? Try Bear Shaman or Herald of Xotli.

You can thank me later.

Theocritus · March 2013

I'm shocked there aren't 100000 Eve posts in this thread aready! And you get to be a spaceship and have other players kill you and take all your stuff!

BeansnBread · March 2013

Originally posted by Theocritus
I'm shocked there aren't 100000 Eve posts in this thread aready! And you get to be a spaceship and have other players kill you and take all your stuff!

You're right.

EVE would be my recommendation for what you're looking for. It's a very deep game with a complex economy.

Edit: Oh whoops, just saw that it needed to be fantasy. My bad.

Kiyonori · March 2013

Originally posted by Xoshua

So what do you suggest? Which game is a solid game for the hardcore gamer not the casual solo type. It's MMO for a reason, why would I play solo in a massive multiplayer? It doesn't make sense. Anyways, let me know.

Originally posted by FromHell

the most immersive and most hardcore low fantasy MMO is Age of Conan, period, if you haven´t tried it, do it now.

You want a weird unusual class? Try Bear Shaman or Herald of Xotli.

You can thank me later.

He means hardcore in the sense that you need to group for things other than dungeons, Age of Conan is about the opposite of what he wants, unless they changed the game significantly since I last played you still solo quest to cap.

Regarding the OP....you have no modern choices as far as hardcore mmo's, what was once considered normal back in 99' is now "hardcore" and it's a niche. Your only options are to play really old games with outdated mechanics (Everquest 1, Asheron's Call, Ultima Online) or bite the bullet and play one of the many games where the only interaction you have with others is in random dungeons/battlegrounds with people from other servers.

I've found myself in the same exact position as you recently and have given up on finding anything modern/populated.

svandy · March 2013

Have you tried Vanguard since the free to play switch? The population is a little better now and they are apparently making enough money to start revamping their early zones as well as they finally released their long awaited "expansion," from what I remember.

Xoshua · March 2013

It's a sad decade for the mmorpg genre. What game are you playing since you're in the same boat? Any decent games to hold you off? Also, I know eve was going to pop in this convo sooner or later. I know so many players love it, its deept, and such. No disrespect to your game but I do not want a ship to customize, I want a toon.

Xoshua · March 2013

Originally posted by svandy
Have you tried Vanguard since the free to play switch? The population is a little better now and they are apparently making enough money to start revamping their early zones as well as they finally released their long awaited "expansion," from what I remember.

I tried it a year ago. It was still being worked on. How is population? Is it over a few hundred in each server?

paulrgod · March 2013

Have you tried Lineage 2?

I've just picked it back up again and having a blast. I'm surprised there are still soo many people playing it too.

pmiles · March 2013

No such game exists... anymore.

Take WoW... you decide to play it today for the very first time, you will find yourself leveling 90 levels all by yourself. If you do happen to run across another player, they aren't even on your server... they've been instanced to make it appear as though the server actually has people playing where you happen to be. Now because you can pretty much one-shot everything you do run across, you get the feeling you are some sort of OP beast... that is, until you hit max level and realize that you are gear deprived to the nth degree. So you end up spending x number of weeks acquiring gear to get you on-par with everyone else. Once there, you get to do the same things over and over again until some new patch comes out which essentially makes whatever you have acquired, obsolete. That's what all MMORPGS are about these days. You will conquer everything in game, the speed at which you do it is your choice... if you are more hardcore, you will attempt to do it all within a week. If you are casual, you will wait until the next patch and faceroll through all the content prior to the patch. In the end, you all have the same gear, the same titles, the same everything... the only difference is when you acquired it. Nobody seems to care about who did what first anymore... mainly because everyone will do it as well. Back in the day, people actually failed at stuff... never possibly could acquire a particular mount because they had to do so before the next patch arrived. Not anymore, you get everything, in due time. Makes the effort of doing anything in an MMO rather pointless.

What you wish you had was the old 40-man raid days... the months of endless wipes... the real sense of accomplishment having acquired an epic weapon that only a handful on the server could ever possibly acquire. The reality that not everyone would be wearing the same gear as you, ever. That's what you seek, and it no longer exists.

EVERY MMO OUT THERE TODAY AND THOSE COMING IN THE FUTURE ARE 100% CASUAL COMPARED TO THE DAYS OF OLD.

ragz45 · March 2013

I played vanguard up until recently, but I wouldn't consider it hardcore at all. It was one of the first games to transition to solo content. I can easily pull 3-5 mobs at a time on my druid, I've never grouped in the game to this point outside of raiding.

As far as the old school games that were flipping hard to solo content with (EQ1 etc) even they have trivilized their experince with the additon of hirable mercenary's and other mechanics to make them more solo friendly. I am in your boat though, I really find myself missing those groups camping crushbone keep, skyshrine, & guk. When a game meant more about bonding with players & making friends, than streaking to max level as fast as possible.

Unfortunatly there isn't anything out there for you an I at the moment. I am currently not playing any MMO's, because all of them lack this social atmosphere that the "hardcore" mmo's used to cultivate. Right now the only thing I'm playing is Sim City & LoL, and neither of them give any type of great social interaction.

ragz45 · March 2013

Originally posted by pmiles

EVERY MMO OUT THERE TODAY AND THOSE COMING IN THE FUTURE ARE 100% CASUAL COMPARED TO THE DAYS OF OLD.

There was still raid content in Rift that only 10% of the server had completed before the relese of the expansion. Now that the level cap has been increased, many people are going back and doing the content that they simply couldn't do before. Even though that gear is now trivialized, just the pure ability to see it is what they are after. (and achievements). Thus your assumption is invalid. Think oldschool WoW with Naxx, and AQ40.

Whether they are going to continue this trend is up in the air at the moment. Scott Hartsman resigned along with a few other minor functionaries. So the direction may stay the same, or he may have resigned because he didn't like the new direction (toward casual play) that the game was going to be taken. Only time will tell with that.

Sovrath · March 2013

Originally posted by paulrgod
Have you tried Lineage 2?

I've just picked it back up again and having a blast. I'm surprised there are still soo many people playing it too.

I was going to say L2 as well. I logged in over the weekend and it's very populated.