First of all I am a gamer, so my title is meant in a gamers way, I need to say this as we have people who confuse gamers with people who might have no life, but from my own experiance most gamers do indeed have a full life, cause lets face it we gamers have a expensive hobby.

Anyway.........like my title's states towards GAMERS is do you feel connection with your character/gameworld/doings, do you feel you actualy there in a GAMERS way.

My experiance from having this feel was only met in Star Wars Galaxies, as it was a game that offered so many choices that finaly it was something not limited to combat only but offered so much that I can not recall 1 second of boredome in that game. It felt like a living world, where you could meet all sorts of people from combatants to your avarage farmer, or what ever other profession or hybrid availeble.

Now SWG was not my first "MMORPG" as I've been with this genre since Meridian59 and UO, but sorry can not recall if it was called MMORPG back then other then remembering them as online games, I personaly felt EQ1 has brought the name MMORPG really to the table to me, yet never really could get into EQ1, but SWG totaly got me.

Overall due to all it's choices I felt I was there........

For me, DAOC. I felt like a part of that game.

Recently, AoC had me with some real immersion for the first 20 levels, but it wore off after lev 60

Have to agree about SWG.

Everquest, DAoC, Ryzom, and FFXI all gave me that feeling

SWG the only one thats ever done it although parts of Aion are giving me that warm fuzzy feeling again.

FFXI and SWG for sure.  Also Ryzom, DAoC a bit, but not as much.

I don't think I've ever felt that immersed in an MMOG.

The last time I experienced something like that was Fallout 3; walking through the wasteland with Dogmeat at my side, only to have him eviscerated by a stealthy deathclaw. I emptied two superfluous clips into its corpse before I remembered that I could just reload my save game.

For me it was WoW when it was still brand spanking new and not the megalith it is now.  I subbed within a month after release and my first character was a human rogue. When I first wandered out of Northshire Abbey into Elwynn Forest, it really did feel like I had the whole world (of Warcraft) to explore. Each place I came upon was a discovery to me, because it really was at the time. The first time I encountered a murloc zerg rush or the first time I entered the Badlands and freaked out because I thought the Orcish grunt in the music for the area was an actual Orc player or mob about to attack.

It's easy to bash WoW now after all the changes and the types of people it ultimately drew, but in the very beginning, it was great. WoW was my first MMO that I actually played more than a few weeks of, and as such, it was my "honeymoon" into the genre. It's going to take a lot for me to feel that sort of immersion into the world as I did back then. In fact, I've even resigned myself to the notion that no other MMO will do that for me now.

For me it was DAoC.  When I played the Norse faction of Midgard and roamed the snowy mountains or the very dark and brooding forests with tons of dangerous stuff that would try and kill me.  There are many times I did this with a friend or 2 and we'd get out of it by the skin of our teeth and at that point I really felt like I was there.

Back playing SWG from release to late 04. Best times where you would be chattin with people waiting in a buffline, to get buffs from popular doc. Then running over to coronet cantina, which back in the day had litteraly hundreds up people in it.

Was like a HUGE party full of lights, people, and music. I would sometimes get so caught up talking and listening to the music that I would forget that I already got my dancer buff hours earlier.

Other cool things like when i'd go to the wetspot cantina, back when it was located about 1900m SE off bestine. They would have a couple people always playing songs and welcoming people there. I talked to the owners a couple times while buying stuff. Then a couple friends I met some time later told me about a party that wetspot cantina was having.

The place was a guild hall, and they where able to fit about 100 people plus in the main area where they had music and contests. I remember I won a bunch of resources and a really good BH pistol off some trivia lol.

That's just to name a couple. I can actually remember almost ALL the events leading up throughout my characters progression. Also, all the betrayals like how It took me months to finally get out player city up to rank rank 3. Then when we where almost big enough to get a shuttle port, it just happened to be that there where too many people on the planet. So we moved to lok. We set up a couple homes a few months earlier on the SE side of the giant volcano mountain because we needed shelter when hunting kraytes that spawned their.

Finally we go all we could ask from a huge player city. All the good stuff, and then one of the players that I had recruited and litteraly ran all the way across tatooine with, then taught the game to. Betrayed us by booting us from the city after he became mayor, and stole all our property. Though we where pretty pissed at the time, it was all very eleberate and interesting.

Wow, I am really missing SWG more and more as time passes. I've gotten over it, but whenever I look back. It was a TRUE mmo experience. Despite all of it's very obvious problems.

Star Wars Galaxies, no doubt about it.

I've never played a game before or since where you can engage in so many different activities, where the social aspect is refined, creative and interdepent, and where it feels like you're actually living a unique life in another world. You could meet with some buddies in your desert home, drive your speeder over to the starport, stop for some music, buffs and conversation in a nearby cantina, board your starship, jump to a different system, blast some rogue starships, then land on the local planet and explore the landscape (shoot stuff, do some missions, shop at someone's vendor, etc.).

I doubt I'll ever experience that in another MMORPG again. The only single-player game that really made me feel similarly was Morrowind, but you can't interact with real people in single-player games.

I often yearn to go back to SWG, but then I remember that the negatives now far outweigh all the positives (some of which are no longer positives anyway).

EQ gave me the hook but I was total noob even though we all where I was totally noob hehe.....

but DAOC was it for me I hit it just at the right time the day it was released I was lean mean MMO machine hehe and primed and got into a good guild on Kay ...it was all luck and timing and I have not found that sense of community or game since then.

AO did it too me too becuase it was right after EQ but DAOC gave me the best memories!

Originally posted by DoktorTeufel

Star Wars Galaxies, no doubt about it.

 

I've never played a game before or since where you can engage in so many different activities, where the social aspect is refined, creative and interdepent, and where it feels like you're actually living a unique life in another world. You could meet with some buddies in your desert home, drive your speeder over to the starport, stop for some music, buffs and conversation in a nearby cantina, board your starship, jump to a different system, blast some rogue starships, then land on the local planet and explore the landscape (shoot stuff, do some missions, shop at someone's vendor, etc.).

 

I doubt I'll ever experience that in another MMORPG again. The only single-player game that really made me feel similarly was Morrowind, but you can't interact with real people in single-player games.

 

I often yearn to go back to SWG, but then I remember that the negatives now far outweigh all the positives (some of which are no longer positives anyway).

It had the perfect sense of doing everything right by doing whatever you felt like doing. Most games either want you to do something specific "themepark", and others have you feeling like you are missing out on something or doing something wrong "Overly complicated sandbox". SWG felt like anything and everything you did had a benefit and at the end of the day, you logged off remembering what ya did.
 

I have yet to expereience a game with "Character progression" That you could have so much  fun doing whatever like in SWG.

Interesting thread. I will admit, EQ1 had me hooked from day 1 in beta. I had a huge love/hate relationship with that game. I have enjoyed many many MMO's but sadly, no MMO to date has made me feel like I was there. There has only been one game that I ever had that feeling in and that was Diablo. I still remember me and my friend going through the dungeon and both of us got killed and we were calling people to get them in the game to come save us lol.

If just a game? Asheron’s Call 2. I played that two days straight.

(Those portals, story after finishing a vault, and the exploration)

Otherwise anytime my character was in danger or I’ve been in a raid/group on voip.

(Feeling you have to coordinate/strategize is somewhat immersive to me)

UO and SWG

Some similarities between them:

Great communities.

Great crafting.

Housing and Vendors

No Auction House (or in SWGs case, a maximum sell price of 5k on the bazaar, god only knows if that changed).

Raph Koster

Sand Box design.

Last time I logged into my UO account was probably 6-8 months ago, for a month or so, cause I missed it. Have never been back to SWG after quitting. But both games made me feel like I was "part" of those worlds. Which at the end of the day, is what the RP in MMORPG is supposed to do, right?

Originally posted by Azureal

UO and SWG

 

Some similarities between them:

 

Great communities.

Great crafting.

Housing and Vendors

No Auction House (or in SWGs case, a maximum sell price of 5k on the bazaar, god only knows if that changed).

Raph Koster

Sand Box design.

 

Last time I logged into my UO account was probably 6-8 months ago, for a month or so, cause I missed it. Have never been back to SWG after quitting. But both games made me feel like I was "part" of those worlds. Which at the end of the day, is what the RP in MMORPG is supposed to do, right?

FE was bad wasn't it lol.

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Originally posted by Azureal

UO and SWG

 

Some similarities between them:

 

Great communities.

Great crafting.

Housing and Vendors

No Auction House (or in SWGs case, a maximum sell price of 5k on the bazaar, god only knows if that changed).

Raph Koster

Sand Box design.

 

Last time I logged into my UO account was probably 6-8 months ago, for a month or so, cause I missed it. Have never been back to SWG after quitting. But both games made me feel like I was "part" of those worlds. Which at the end of the day, is what the RP in MMORPG is supposed to do, right?

 

FE was bad wasn't it lol.

Since Im no longer in posession of a beta account, and I couldnt give a flying fuck about the NDA, yeah, its fucking horrible. Depressingly fucking horrible. And the next fanboi to draw comparisons between FEs crafting systems and that of pre-NGE SWG, gets an internet punch in the face.

Mine was diablo, the original one. I could spend hours playing a warrior, just going, "This is great, I want to learn more about what happened here, and I love my shield" I couldn't really do it with the rouge or wizard, but eh. I got immersed with the warrior. I then had the same with diablo 2, only with the necro and wind/summon druid hybrid.

Then I came to eve online. I loved it so much the first day I played it, I felt like I was a ship from Homeworld 2, but not constantly trying to kill someone. That's actually how I found the game, I saw an advertisement that had a minmatar ship (the one with a great height, but little width), and went, "That looks like the mothership from homeworld 2..." And clicked it. But I just loved being an Amarr, going around with my head up high, thinking I'm better than others (Until I lost my ship a couple times =p). And I just loved how if I wanted to, I could technically do almost anything. My favorite thing that I kept aspiring to do, was to be a pirate hunter. To protect those in need, or just to keep a transport safe in lowsec. And the fact that I could one day be great at it, kept me playing for days on end, thinking I could, with my friends, be a little police force in some lowsec areas.

Single player rpgs did it for me too a bit. Oblivion and Fallout 3 being the main ones. I spent hours using the clunky object movement system in oblivion, to try and furnish my house with weapons and armor, or even just books and food I've found in the far reaches of the world, or from the arena. I had the same thing in Fallout, from when I would help random caravans being attacked by raiders, or trying to just make it to the other side of the map.

 My first group ever in EQ, where as a low level Ranger it was my job to scout ahead for Crushbone Orcs.

Been looking for that feeling again ever since.

Asheron's Call 1.  The world was freaking huge and ready to be explored.  I met a lot of great people in that game.  I remember testing different spell component combinations to try to learn new spells and the excitement of going red at the altars.  I'm sure the fact that it was my first MMO has a lot to do with it, but I've never experienced gameplay like that since.

EQOA, it was my first MMO.  What made me feel like a part of the world was the seamlessness of the game.  There was VERY little zoning and really no instancing.  THe game world varied tremendously, as a Barbarian I came from the snowy lands of Halas, Trolls came from the swamps of Grobb, and so on.  You could literally run from the top of the game world to the bottom non-stop and it would take to several hours to do.  The raid zones were complex, the bosses were worthy oppenents. 

Time to kill the dragon. Good times! 

DAOC was the first game I experienced it in, (loved my Minstrel so much I considered learning to play an instrument in real life) and right now EVE draws me into its world in a major way.

DAoC the day the servers went live, running around Gotar with my Kobold Skald. I literally transcended to another dimension that day.

UFO: Enemy Unknown... that was about 20 years ago... it's the only game I've ever played that I didn't notice the time passing by...