I just wish they'd stop making MMOs...or make MMOs that didn't have crappy watered down gameplay. I'll keep my eye on this one and hell, I'll give it a chance in my mind, because I really do hope it's good, but honestly, I've kind of already written it off. Every MMO I've played (and I've played the "good" ones like WoW and CoH) was utterly disappointing as a game.

$50 says you didn't pass level 20 on WoW before giving up.

MMO Pros:

- Huge worlds to explore
- More in-depth classes than regular RPGs
- Huge bosses

MMO Cons:

- Either need to rely on a clan/guild/lots of other people to do the cool stuff, or have to have so much knowledge and/or patience to do things by yourself
- Neverending, and if it's not a popular MMO, you're not likely to get an ending
- $$$

My take on the MMOisphere. I would've probably given the Star Trek MMO a chance (if I had $$$, which I most likely wouldn't) because of setting, and perhaps TOR if I like KOTOR enough, but I doubt it on either case (assuming Trek eventually comes out).

This.

So enlighten him (and me, actually) then...what makes the game so much better after level 20?

A lot of what people don't see though is that the subscription costs go to keeping the team paid while they roll out patches and story arcs...
Just thought I'd play devil's advocate for a second or two. I don't like pay-to-play games though...

Yeah seriously. Why the hell do I have to invest that much time in the game for it to finally be fun and then what exactly about it is fun after level 20?

You're still proving my point. The game play shouldn't suck without other people and being over level 20. Hell MT and I both played CoH for a little while and it was just...well...fucking boring.

Hey, I liked CoH, mainly when I had Peeve and Cow to play with, and the others in our supergroup. By myself it wasn't so good.

How fun would inFamous be if you only kept the shockwave ability and the default lightning blast for the whole game? Pretty boring, I'd say. Likewise, how fun would it be for them to give you all of your powers from the start? Again, I'd say it would be boring by the time you got past Neon.

Now, how much more fun does it get as you restore more power to the sub-stations, and subsequently gain more powers, from electric bombs all the way up to full out lightning storms? Pretty damn fun, because you're seeing rewards from your efforts, anticipating what powers you could get next.


WoW is the exact same. You start out with a (very) limited move-set, that builds in both quantity and power as you go. The only difference is WoW takes longer and doesn't have a story to follow (per se). Take out the story from inFamous, leave in just the side missions, and you've got the basis for an MMO.

The whole point of any RPG, be it console or MMO, is to eventually get you to the point where you feel like some kind of ultimate being (and yes, inFamous has RPG elements in it, just more subtle). Console RPGs can do this over a much shorter amount of time because, typically, the game is over and done in less than 30 hours. MMOs have to stretch it out more, which is why they drip feed you powers rather than give you a banquet.

That's especially true in the case of WoW, considering there are now 80 levels to get. Everyone who plays WoW will admit that the first 20 levels suck in comparison to everything after. Why? Mainly because you are so ridiculously weak, combined with the fact that there are really only a few places you can go without getting your ass kicked 6 ways from sunday. That's true of almost every RPG though. FF7 sucks until you storm the Shin-ra building, Chrono Trigger sucks until you go back in time and start actually fighting things, etc. They're just things you have to get through to get to the best parts, again, WoW just takes longer, as would most every other MMO I would imagine.

Why does it improve beyond 20? I thought that would be obvious. More powers, more places to explore, more dungeons to conquer. At level 20, mages get 'Blizzard', arguably their greatest damaging Area of Effect spell, both in terms of power, and crowd control potential. Paladins get 'Blessing of Kings', which boost all of a players stats by 10%, and 'Consecration' - the Paladin Tanks most used spell. Priests can get 'Shackle Undead' - THE pivotal crowd control method when dealing with zombies. Every class at 20 gets something that defines who they are and what they do. From that point on you start getting a feeling for the potential behind each class. My shadow priest at 40 could only just hold his own against 2 enemies, but at 68 he can handle 5 - 6 without a problem.




But it doesn't suck though, that's the thing - it's just not AS good as playing with a group (hence the 'Multi' part of MMO), and it certainly IS better beyond 20. Maybe you're just not that much of an RPG fan / don't like playing with strangers / don't want to dump a large portion of time into one single game?

Well for me, I understand what all you're saying, but it takes a lot of time to get to level 20 when things really start to get interesting. If other games took as many hours as MMOs seem to (in my limited experience) in order for the real fun to begin, i'd have given up on a lot more games earlier on.

I imagine other MMOs are the same. It's in their best interests to keep you playing for as long as possible (although Eve is in a league of it's own. The biggest ships take about 2 years real time to learn how to fly. Sill an amazing game though).

Personally though, I like that. I often feel cheated when I pay full price for a game, and I complete it in 5 hours. I'd rather have the long, slow start game that builds up and takes 15+ hours. Feels like better value for money.

To this day whenever I see that abbreviation I instantaneously think of the Yu-Gi-Oh card...


Also, WoW sucks.

The only MMO other than Ragnarok that has ever appealed to me was Final Fantasy Online, but I was always too intimidated by its complexity. Plus it's already like 5 expansions in and I hate jumping into things late.

It actually has a massive and extremely detailed story to follow. It's just not spoon fed to you. Especially in the current expansion when they're putting a heavy focus on cinematic scenes and such. Even some of the boss fights are steeped in the worlds lore.

And we haven't even seen anything "new". They're still working through story arches left open from the old Warcraft games.



Back to the point at hand though, the whole purpose of paying has been stated, but to put it into a context some of you may better understand:
Episodic gaming has become pretty popular lately. Not the least of which is Half-Life Episode (x). Assuming you play any of these: why?
It's the same concept that MMO's (good ones at least) tend to use, they just have a lot more going into them at a more frequent pace.

I completely agree.

MT and I tried SW: Galaxies together. Played it for a few hours and never could find one another.

CoH was fun with Cow, MT and/or the SG, but the rest of the gaming for me was not that fun. With the exception of me running around healing others.

I played WoW, thought it was kinda neat. For me definitely not worth continually paying money for.

That's kind've what I meant. Rather than actively following a story from point a all the way through to point z uninterupted, you often stumble across the story parts, like the quest chain on the alliance side that eventually lets you discover that Lady Prestor, aide to the King, was actually Onyxia of the Black Dragonflight.




Just wait until Final Fantasy XIV

For me I think you've partly nailed it in that I don't want to spend massive amounts of time and money on ONE game for extremely incremental gains in said game. I don't like the asinine grinding you have to do for hours on end. It's fucking lame. I want to play the fucking game. I don't want some asshat developer making me play for as long as possible to milk as much money as possible, to the detriment of my enjoyment of the game.

While the games ARE fun with other people, that's kind of the problem. They AREN'T fun on their own. They substitute better gameplay with the MMO part. I'd rather have just a full fledged RPG that is online and I wish they'd look at it that way a little more. Instead of focusing on the multiplayer component so much, it'd be nice if they focused on the actual gameplay. Yeah, I don't like waiting for a random group of strangers to start up a quest or try and schedule time with my friends. I just want to play the fucking game.

Then how are you going to play any kind of RPG, be it MMO or otherwise? Do you know what EVERY RPG has? Grinding. Grinding up the fucking wazoo. In Chrono Trigger when you have to go and rescue the Queen, you're grinding through enemies. In fucking Pokemon when you're trying to get from one gym to another, you're grinding through random pokemon battles. What do you think you're going to be doing in Diablo III? It's what you do in a fucking RPG. It just doesn't feel like it because it's not part of your mission to kill things in the random battles you face (wheras in MMOs it is), they're just things that are in your way when you're trying to get from one point to another.


Seriously, I think it's more to do with the fact that you don't like RPGs in general, rather than MMOs.

I can't put it into words as well as he can, hence I let him explain it. But he pretty much said it perfectly.

You don't like RPGs, which I've said before, so you have a level of bias going into the discussion of this MMO. You already have a distaste for it, so no amount of justification or defending we offer will suffice. You make it sound like you want a simple game were you only have to play for 30 hours and never have to pick up the game again. These games you're referring to tend to not have as indepth of 'lore', which is MAJOR part of what makes WoW so interesting. The story, as there is a major one.

They took everything that made the Warcraft games amazing, and met it with an MMO, appealing to two crowds in my mind.

You have full control of your character (within reason). You can go where you please and for the most part do what you please. On top of that you get the entire experience of playing with others and networking, etc. Which honestly isn't that big of a deal, to have to rely on others.

As far as leveling; it is a utter JOKE to level in WoW. ANYONE who has played any other MMO and then comes to WoW will admit how easy it is to move through the levels. There are 80 levels, and I could reach level 20 in a matter of days just casually playing. Thats 1/4 of the way through the level process...in less than a week. You don't have to grind...at all really. There are enough quests/dungeons that you could level only doing those, which is what most everyone does. I don't think I've honestly 'grinded' since I made my first character 3 years ago.

I don't know what else to say that hasn't been already; you seem to have some misconceptions and certain amount of bias against these types of games. So, it will probably reach the point where no amount of discussion or explanation will sway you to think otherwise.

I myself actually prefer to play alone. >.>

With rare exception, I do almost everything in the game alone unless I have no choice. Stuff recommended to be done by 3 people (even at Lv.80) I still do on my own.

It's not really THAT incremental either. I don't feel like I'm being milked. Even though I've been playing for 2 years, there's STILL story lines that I haven't actually got around to questing through/seeing.

The ONLY point of yours that seems even remotely valid is that you don't want to put that kind of time into a single game. Which is honestly understandable. It's not for everyone. You can't call it a bad game because of that though. It was pretty well universally praised by critics, holds more than 60% of the MMO market, and is the best selling game for 2005 and 2006. In addition to that, the first expansion is the best selling game for 2007, and the current expansion is the best selling game for 2008. The current expansion also holds the record for fastest selling PC game with 2.8 million copies sold in the first 24 hours, what's in 2nd place? The first expansion.

There's a little something for almost everyone in the game. Though this isn't always a good thing, it certainly keeps things interesting with some of the people you run across.

In the case of the Half Life episodes, I play them because I can get through the story in 5 or 6 hours. 5 or 6 hours of WoW and I might have gone up 8 or 9 levels, and still haven't gotten to the real meat of the story.

Just because you can't pick out a "central" story doesn't mean you never hit the meat of it. It's a full world with multiple races who all have problems and imminent crises to deal with. Some story lines follow from extremely low levels up to Lv. 60+

An example of one they had (I say had because part of it has been removed in an attempt to show an actual flow of time in the game):
As low as Lv. 5 you are introduced to the Defias, a band of thieves attacking the city of Stormwind and its surrounding lands. As you progress through dealing with them you learn that they want to overthrow the aristocracy that run the city. As you continue to quest it is revealed that the bulk of the gangs members are actually made up of members of the Masons Guild who were tasked with rebuilding Stormwind after the Orcs destroyed it during the First War. Upon not being compensated for their work, they formed the Defias and vowed to have their revenge. You eventually locate the leader of the group, Edward VanCleef, and slay him.

During the course of doing all of that, you hit a chain of quests that deals with a missing noble that the Defias may have been involved in, but it is revealed that the kidnapping of said noble was far to intricate and massively played out to be done by the Defias alone. Through the course of this chain you eventually discover that the missing noble is in fact the King of Stormwind who was thought to be away for a diplomatic summit to discuss setting up stronger peace ties/treaties with Horde.

As your building levels through that particular line, you come across another that requests aid against black dragons to push back their forces from entering lands surrounding Stormwind. Upon aiding the people doing this, you learn that the dragons may be controlling Orcs still within Blackrock Mountain (if you've played Warcraft 2, this was where the orcish horde had made its based during the Second War) that stand apart from the Horde as their own force. You are asked to request aid from Stormwind in dealing with the menace which leads you to speak with Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, one of the advisors to the prince who helps lead in the stead of the missing King. Due to the lands forces being spread thin as it is (revealed in another quest chain from lower levels), he is reluctant to send aid without proof and asks you to speak with Lady Katrana Prestor (the other of the Prince's advisors), who snobbishly downplays the situation. Bolvar then makes you an acting deputy of Stormwind and asks you to return to where you came from and attempt to seek said proof to give them reason to act.

Upon returning, you are pretty much laughed at and it is revealed that you are not the first to have been treated so, and that many have been lost. The only person that had gathered any proof was the previous commander of the outpost, Marshal Windsor, you are at who was ambushed and captured by orcs. The only person still living and free from the encounter went AWOL and hides in a cave to the north of your location. Upon finding and speaking to this man, it is revealed that the orcs failed in their assault, by way of intervening Dark Iron Dwarves who inhabit the lower levels of the mountain. They captured him and took him to their underground city. You travel into the Blackrock Depths and find Windsor who feels betrayed and void of hope, saying that without the notes he had, there's no point in even saving him. You return to the outpost and the current commander thinks the guy has gone batty. At this point there is no continued "quest". But if you return to the depths to "investigate" you discover a crumpled note on one of the bodies that names high ranking members of this particular group of dwarves. Returning to Windsor he finds some hope, thinking that perhaps these two will hold the bulk of his notes. Thus you proceed further into the unground city and take out said dwarves and retrive Windsor's notes. He feels this may be enough to push the issue in Stormwind. Helping him escape, you can not keep up with him and make your way back to the outpost.

Upon returning, you discover that he's been there and gone again, heading straight for Stormwind. A message is left that you should follow suit and bring as many people as you can. You return to Stormwind and meet up with him outside its gates. As you begin to enter the city, Lady Prestor calls out for his head to be taken, but Bolvar countermands her saying that none are to touch him. At this time Windsor reveals to you that Lady Prestor is in fact Onyxia, daughter of Deathwing (if you played Warcraft 2, this name would be familiar) and one of the Black Flights current leaders along with her brother Nefarian and that she has been keeping Bolvar and similar nobles in check with a mind control spell. You make your way to the keep and enter the throne room where the two await you. Upon revelation of this information, Onyxia reveals herself and slays Windsor, but Bolvar is finally stirred to action with the enchantment being broken and fights off other members of the black flight summoned by Onyxia, but she manages to escape.

It goes on quite a bit from here, leading you to gain entrance to Onyxia's Lair and defeat her, and continues even past that to her brother Nefarian but that's a whole other bag of worms and I'm sure I've bored you enough. The point is, at this last part you'd have been Lv. 60 and all from story threads that began around Lv. 5. The dealings of the Black Dragonflight were and still are a major part of the games story even now (for example it has been revealed that Deathwing, thought dead after the Second War, still lives, etc. ) and we've not yet seen the end of their schemes.


===================
Post TL;DR story nerd-gasm
===================

This was just one of dozens of major story arches that start at low levels and build up throughout the game if you're just willing to follow through. Time consuming? Yes. But epic. As I stated before, it seems more a matter of the time your willing to put into it. Not for everyone, but I find it worth every penny.
Instead of paying $30-60 for what amounts to 4-20 hours of entertainment with a story that stays as is (with exception), I pay $15 a month for something that I haven't even completed the available content for yet. The time I put into it makes it worth it.

Honestly dude, and no offense... tl;dr

That's great that putting that much work into a game like this is enjoyable for you...that's awesome. If I had to compare it to anything in my life it would be investing a few hours into reading a really good Star Wars book. After it's all said and done, no matter how long it may have taken, it was an enjoyable experience. But shit, for me...investing 100+ hours into an MMO and only getting a few good stories out of it sounds like a fucking terrible idea. Maybe it would be more interesting to me if I had more invested into the WoW storylines. I do find them interesting, no doubt...but i'm sure as hell not willing to put that much time into it. Who knows though...if the people at Bioware cram as much story into The Old Republic, I may change my tune.

So if they were twice as long, about 10 hours for each episode, you wouldn't play them?

Wasn't expecting many people too. I was bored.
Short version:
Story lines you pick up as low as level 5 lead through to main story lines that culminate at high levels and are pivotal events in the worlds history.

To each his own though. I'd never put that kind of time into Star Wars books/etc. myself even if I did enjoy the movies.

As far as the cost, I feel like I'm saving money by playing WoW. I don't have the desire nor necessity to play other games that cost one flat rate. It costs $150 a year to play wow; how much do you, you being general, spend on games with one flat cost a year? How much will you spend in the next year now that E3 has come out? You buy 3 games at $50-$60 each, and you've already matched or exceeded the cost of WoW for one year.

That's how I look at it. The game, for me and many others, is so in depth and rewarding that I don't need to play other games, I get my fill because the game won't end in 30 hours, and I have to go off and find another 'fix' by spending another 50-60 bucks in one blow. Add up all your games, or add up how much you've spent on games, and compare it to the cost of WoW.

I understand if you flat out don't want to play the game, I understand that people want a variety in gaming. But for a lot of people they don't need that; maybe they wanted to find one game they can always play and every time they log on they will have a rewarding experience. That is what WoW gives; so the cost is more than justified in my mind.

Please don't tell me we're going to keep going back and forth until you pick a timeframe that will be too long for me to take.

But to answer your question, $20 for 10 hours is not unreasonable, no. And I think I see where you're going with this. But another thing to take into consideration for me personally is that I don't have that much time to put into something that I have to pay per month to play. Plus, with the analogy you're using about the Half Life episodes, those are games that I can play by myself and still have a good time. If I were to go through a lot of the WoW stuff by myself, I would be bored out of my fucking mind. You can't deny that a good portion of the quests in WoW are meant to be played with other people. Like webhead said before, the amount of scheduling that would most likely have to take place for a lot of the stuff that requires playing in a group would just be too big of a headache for me, personally.

And yes, I saw Mera'din say where he can play through a lot of the stuff that "requires" more people by himself...but that's just not me.

I really hope you pro-MMO people aren't lumping webhead's hate for the genre in general with my opinion.

Sure is E3 09 in here.

WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT WARCRAFT

Take the quest talk to the actual WoW topic, kthx.

Why isn't all of this stuff being lumped into some new "MMO: like or dislike?" topic. It hasn't been on topic for at least a page now

I don't hate RPGs...I'm just not fond of shit that's overly complicated and requires hours upon hours of shit for little gain. MMOs are basically long and overly drawn out RPG games that you can play with lots of people and that have gameplay that's not quite as good as RPGs.

All that being said, I've been somewhat interested in Eve Online just because of how many good thing I've heard, but I just don't know about the Star Wars MMO. I'm quite cynical about it due to all the other MMOs that have seemed to be ho-hum, but it's possible it could be good.

One rising MMO has been pretty much left out throughout this thread but is worth mentioning: Warhammer Online.

I've never played it myself but from everybody I've talked to about say its superior to WoW, granted they all preferred PVP over PVE, and since Warhammer (if I heard correctly) gives you the option to level entirely on PVP if you wanted to, it appeals heavily to that group of players.

I hate PvP, which is why I detest Warhammer, and fell out of GuildWars as both are extremely PvP based.

Most I've talked to that played it didn't like it that much, but yeah. From what I've heard it's pretty heavily PvP oriented in comparison to WoW (which is impressive since WoW has a pretty heavy PvP focus at times).

No, WoW is Much more PvE based than PvP, only since the release of WotLK has it begun to balance out, but in the end PvE will always be more important than PvP in WoW (better gear, tougher challenges, better teamwork)

I honestly don't know of a MMO that is as in depth and creative as WoW in a PvE respect. It is obviously because of their lore; I don't think other MMO's come close with the extent of lore found in Warcraft...or any of Blizzard's games for that matter.

I've caught myself on and off wanting to play FFXI again...but it's so hard getting started in there and in PvE it is lacking because you're on your own a little too much in my opinion. If you try to group up for stuff you get incredibly hindered trying to level because they butcher the exp you get while grouped. At least this was my experience from over 2 years ago.

I should check back on it, see what's diff and/or see about FFIV.

l2roman

Yea...cause you're perfect 100% of the time.

stupid trolls are stupid.

It's douchey enough to try and save face after a catastrophic screw up, but trying to save face AND counter insult your assailant (especially with another screw up i.e. leaving out "the" in "you're perfect 100% of time") immediately propels you into the dangerously douchey upper echelons of douchedom.

For you to constantly propel yourself to correct people, and only correct people and then immediately vacate the area makes you just as big a douche, a stereotypical douche that the internet has far too many of.

Did I mention that it's even MORE douchey to try and cover up your screw ups after someone has pointed them out?


That's a triple douche high score you've got going on... if you post again, you may surpass the douche trifecta.

Thank you for continually proving my point.

What are you even doing in an MMO topic anyway? Other than to troll on people who enjoy WoW and the like?

WoW sucks.

I'll end my waste off energy on you with a hearty 'fuck off'.

Quadrafail successful.

I left that for you, you're welcome.

I would also like to point out, that had this whole thing not had to do with FF, you would have not even commented on it, or probably even read it for that matter.

I couldn't care less about my 2 or 3 minor grammatical errors. They were made while my attention was divided among at least 3 other things while I was typing them. Of course none of this will matter, however you get your jollies, right?

Does the term "vicious cycle" mean anything to you?

At what point should I start caring? Cause if I spent every waking moment trying to appease people in my every encounter on the internet, I would have a much larger problem.

You knew what I meant every time I posted something, you knew enough to correct the issue regarding what installment of FF I was referring to; so who gives a fuck? You're equally not contributing to this topic just as much as I am now.

I don't mean this in a bad way Koden, but shut up. Every response you give him is just going to keep him going.

It's been about equal since mid way through Burning Crusade, ie: about the time they started the arena system and top arena gear became equal to top tier PvE gear along with gaining access to exclusive mount models that are not acquirable in any other way, shape or form.

The gear is practically equal, the challenges are equal (if different), and it requires just as much teamwork. Organizing people to face other people is a greater challenge than organizing people to face computer run AI.

I caught on to that pretty much after the first response dude. Why should I stop? I can just as much keep going as he can.



I disagree in the sense that development has always been geared more heavily on PvE, and PvP developments are always second to come. I agree the arena system was a big jump, but Blizzard has always had a priority with PvE first.