Dear mmorpg.com community,
I played any of the P2P Fantasy games on the Game List on mmorpg.com. So I decided to show you the features, the pros and also their cons. I talk about the basic, stereotypical Fantasy MMORPGs:
World of Warcraft (WoW)
Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO)
Everquest 2 (EQ2)
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (VSoH)
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR)
(I did not add GW, AoC etc. because they're different. And I didn't add DAoC / EQ etc. because they're too old)
I made different categories and I will point out, which MMO offers the best features in the category you like the most:
GRAPHICS
Winner: Warhammer Online / World of Warcraft
Ok. I can see the big "WTF?" over your head. But seriously. An MMORPG is a game you play for a long time, if you find the right one. And - because of it's cartoony graphics - they won't look outdated. They will look like solid comic games in 5 years. Maybe LOTROs graphics are stunning now, but the ground will look like crap in 2 years. Realistic Graphics aren't built for the future.
CHARACTER DESIGN
Winner: Vanguard: Saga of Heroes / Everquest 2
Vanguard and EQ2 offer really much freedom at character creations. Both have over a dozen classes and races to choose from and the character alignement in EQ2 has plenty options.
GAMEPLAY
Winner: World of Warcraft
No other game has made the gameplay mechanics of an MMORPG so easy to understand and perfectly working yet. The gameplay feels so smooth and intuitive in comparision to other MMORPGs.
STORY AND LORE
Winner: Lord of the Rings Online
Lord of the Rings is the most successfull fantasy book in history and the grandfather of fantasy. There are so many stories, places and characters, it's unbelieveable. Turbine did well with transfering the book into a game, it's like actually being a part of it.
QUEST DESIGN
Winner: World of Warcraft
Well, any of the above games has those Kill/Loot/Speakwith-Quests. But WoW actually has some really funny and enjoyable quests, like shooting vikings with a harpoon in fps-style, driving motorbike races or destroying whole legions with a tank. Especially the Lich King expansion has very good quests.
DUNGEONS
Winner: Everquest 2
EQ2 has more dungeons than the other games and plenty raid bosses. The trash is hard, the bosses even harder. If you want to raid, this is the game for you.
CRAFTING
Winner: Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Vanguard has so much to craft and so much rewards for it. For example there are crafter-mounts, crafter-equip etc. You also have a crafter level aside your battle level and diplomacy level.
PVP
Winner: Warhammer Online
Warhammer Online is a solid PVP game with many scenarios and EXP for PVP, which is a really cool feature. WAR is the best western fantasy MMO PVP game (well that sounds funny). (GW and AOC didn't make it up the list because they're not the MMORPG stereotype)
OVERALL WINNER
Well, that's your decision. Look at the features and decide what you like. I just wanted to point out the strenghts of these games.
MMORPG.com writes:
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