I tried getting back into it during the last classic progression server launch. Unforunately, it was seriously tainted with powergaming hoohas on a crusade to screw over yet another attempt by SOE to allow old time ex-vets a fun return. How can powergamers screw over a progression server you say? By screaming to 50, farming everything available and turning the economy into a worthless pile of WoW gold.

Oh, good luck with your search, but I'm afraid I'm done with EQ. Maybe we'll meet up when EQNext comes out in 2016.

As a few people have pointed out, there are already great PvP MMOs, yet only one of which has a decent population. What does that tell you?

I'm sold on DAoC as having the best PvP mechanics of any fantasy MMO ever made, period. Guess where DAoC lies in scheme of things? Dead in the water, or on life support basically. Mythic Entertainment had a screw loose when they made WarHammer, cause if they had made anything even remotely similar to DAoC, it would have had better reviews.

People copy WoW all the time and get away with it, so why would copyig EverQuest for PvE or DAoC for PvP be such a bold move? Yes, it's millions of dollars at stake, but how many WoW clones have we seen crash and burn? It's like gaming companies don't hire anyone who's taken a class on gaming history.

WoW clones do not work, so stop copying it.

Back on topic... PvP is already available and ArcheAge might be our closest bet at copying DAoC, but I'm only seeing open PvP instead of 3 Factions. Factions are needed as open PvP creates extremely lopsided control. Leave it to players to screw up a games genuine approach to fun by trying to bully the opposition with numbers.

As DAoC has proven, objective based PvP is a Charlie Sheen approach to keeping players happy and subscribed.

Please, someone give me a hundred million dollars and I'll give you Planetside + DAoC on steroids.

Granted, I canceled my sub, due to bugs and game issues, I'm still playing my 2nd month every day. As for guild numbers, well, the guild I'm in has 150 or so members, 50% of which are ALTs, so out of 75 unique members, about 35-50 are usually logged in at any given moment. We still run 2-3 OPs a week as well as HMs every day. SWTOR isn't tanking, but numbers have dropped. I'll probably resubscribe at the end of this month, but cancel again as I'll be in the field for about 2-3 months.

SWTOR a huge success? Sure, compared to 90% of other MMO's. There may be 1 or 2 that had a better or more successful launch. Anyone who thinks the game is tanking are in WoW guilds that are probably going back to WoW. Which doesn't suprise me, cause they did the same thing when Rift launched.

If what your looking for is a promising Sandbox MMO, this is about as good as it's going to get for anything coming out in the near future.

Sandbox Heaven

Originally posted by maskedweasel

The problem Rhoklaw, is the gear balancing more so than anything else...

 

Prior to 50 its all about the gear balance in coordination with the level scaling (which seems to scale amazingly well for lower level troopers and smugglers, but terribly for knights) 

 

At 50 its all about the PvP gear.. without it.. you'll go down in 3 hits easy.

I definitely agree with you about the gear, so that we can agree on. However, explain to me why as a Merc, I am having my butt handed to me by Scoundrels only? Sentinels, Sages and even DPS Troopers are not killing me in 5 seconds. Maybe its the fact Scoundrels can put out as much damage as a Sniper without having to wait for the buildup. Not to mention they have umpteen utility skills, stealth, offheals, vanish... yada yada.

As for people not having the proper gear at level 50. Think we can chalk that issue up as a BioWare fail. If WoW was able to have bracketed BG's, not sure why SWTOR couldn't. Can't tell me SWTOR servers have a lower population than WoW servers, so that whole lack of people in Queue rubbish isn't gonna fly.

That being said, overall, PvP and WZs specifically are a hot mess in SWTOR, no doubt about that.

Well, I could have sworn, someone somewhere mentioned people from Mythic Entertainment helped with the creation of SWTOR. Granted, who these individuals were, obviously had nothing to do with the success of DAoC's RvR system, cause since SWTOR launched, PvP and Warzones have been an absolute joke.

I read the patch notes and saw with my own eyes the whopping 1 skill reduced 20% in dmg output. I thought, ok, maybe they tested it and that was enough. Well, since that patch, my Merc is still being killed by Scoundrels in about 3-5 seconds, depending on their gear.

In fact, I watched as one Scoundrel took me from 15k to 7k health in 2 skills. The one skill doing 5k dmg alone... uhm, 5k is 80% of what? 6k? Seriously BioWare?

PvP in SWTOR is quickly becoming the worst system ever seen in an MMO. <sigh>

I don't know the answer to half of your questions, but if you had asked which of these 3 games is worth paying for, I would have to say Classic DAoC.

Truth of the matter is, with all 12 points being made, EA BioWare along with a slew of other top notch companies fail to follow these simple guidelines.

Sit back and think really hard and pick what you enjoyed most about MMOs, not just about one MMO, but all MMOs you've ever played. For me, it would go something like this...

EQ + DAoC + SWG

EQ because of realism. Such as Encumberance, lack of speed travel and player corpse runs. Having to eat and drink constantly in order to do well in combat. Slowed combat style where abilities aren't rattled off with button mashing because they take time to cast or have long cool downs. EQ was more about timing, not having eye / hand coordination and reflexes of a world class FPS junkie. EQ's sense of adventure has been lost and no MMO has duplicated it since.

DAoC because of 3 Realm conflict. That being the reason RvR worked so well. Since even if server population was lopsided, the 2 smaller realms could temporarily join up and fight the 3rd larger realm. RvR ( PvP ) in DAoC truly is a masterpiece and Planetside can attest to that. Seemless zones like WoW and SWG are of course going to be necessary in any type of PvP oriented game. Zones and PvP don't mix. Realm Points are the currency of killing enemy players. DAoC did it right but making people actually having to fight similar level brackets in order to gain RP. DAoC was also setup where you didn't queue for BGs, but rather zoned into your level bracket BG and played it like any other zone. WoW and SWTOR BGs are horribly done, simply because you either wait in a queue or you group up and wait for the enemy to queue. Also, BGs in DAoC had more meaningful objectives. BGs in WoW and SWTOR are nothing more then mini PvP games. Open world RvR in DAoC carried on where the BGs left off, but added 2 major objectives to the list... Realm Relics. RvR in DAoC NEVER and I mean NEVER got boring. Last but not least, DAoC still has the largest variation of race / class selection of any MMO available to this day.

SWG because of the ridiculous complexity of resource gathering and the overall crafting system. The fact it was a sandbox is another important factor. Before SOE / LA destroyed it, SWG had one of the best character class progression systems ever designed. Player built cities in SWG was phenomenal and has yet to be redone in an MMO.

So, to sum it all up..

Take EQ's realism and adventure, add in DAoCs RvR ( PvP ) mechanics plus a spoonful of SWG's crafting and resource gathering and a touch of SWG player built cities and BAM! Ultimate recipe for success...

Where is this MMO at? I've wondered that ever since gaming companies keep trying to copy WoW.

Originally posted by Torgrim

Even the fanbois starts to see the truth about how shallow and bland SWTOR really is, the snowball effect has started.

SWTOR may have decided to focus on VO instead of other things, but that doesn't mean it can't or won't be added later. VO is probably the hardest thing to add to an MMO, but Mini Games, Guild Halls, Player Housing and Open Space Travel are not. As for the cost of SWTOR, VO isn't cheap, which means you won't see any other MMO's providing this amount again very soon, if ever.

Yes, no denying server populations have dropped. Mass exodus style? Not yet. As long as they keep pecking away at things to add as well as put out free mini updates, the game will survive. If Rift can do it, SWTOR should have no problem, no? Anyway, depending on whether ArcheAge ever gets to the US and doesn't end up like another FFXIV flop. That game may just put everything on the market to shame.

My only fear is FFXIV all over again for the US version. Aside from that, were probably looking at a 2014 release date here if were lucky.

Granted, Meridian 59 was my first true MMO, it wasn't until EQ that I realized just how amazing online games could be. Being a fan of AD&D since I was 8, roleplaying was a huge part of my gaming hobby. When EQ launched, it was buggy and complicated and new. NPC's didn't have exclamation points above their head or dot trails leading you to your quest objective. EQ was designed in a way that forced players to explore the world, not that I would really classify it as forced, since most enjoyed traveling the world by foot. Sure, Druids and Wizards could teleport but it wasn't as easy to come by as most MMO's today.

The OP brings up a good point. Today's MMO generation are lazy, thats right, lazy in their gaming when in fact, all they are doing is pressing keys and moving a mouse. So what if it takes an hour to get from one zone to another. If you can't enjoy that simple aspect called exploration, why are you playing MMO's? MMO's were designed to pass time and with that in mind, we lost our direction.

Remember the language barrier in EQ? Not everyone could communicate with one another. Remember needing food and water in your bag? Remember STR stat actually affecting how much one could carry aka encumberance? It's like today's gamers have zero and I mean zero sense of RP.

I don't care if gaming companies want to cater to that particular crowd, but please, don't claim to be making an MMORPG and have it end up like GW, Global Agenda or APB.

Let's bring back the RP to MMOG and get back to the roots that started this epic genre. Let's bring back SWG, EQ and DAoC utilizing today's technology and graphics. Heck, even Anarchy Online in it's god awful launch is a much better game then some of the crap coming out claiming to be MMO's.

OP, I totally agree with you on this, unfortunately.

If you've never heard of Chad Vader or Tay Zonday, then I would like to welcome you to a whole new way to appreciate that which is good...

Chocolate Rain

I think the point of the post is that SWTOR not only has latency issues, but regardless of patch, also combat delay issues as well. Warzones, for people such as myself and many others are next to impossible to even compete in. It literally takes me 5-6 pushes of my mouse or hotkey to get an ability to go off. No one has any interest in playing any type of PvP with that amount of latency / delay. Since BioWare already admitted to this issue, we know for a fact it exists, but despite their best efforts, its still present and a very poor quality for an MMO to have. Consider it the ugly duckling of issues for any MMO.

Finally, something worth suing over.

To start, I just want to say, forced grouping is worse then what SWTOR offers. Not everyone wants to HAVE to join a group to see the content of the game. Does this make a game more single player then group? Probably. That doesn't mean people can't group up though. SWTOR offers enough incentives to group up, with bonus XP and increased item drops.

Forced grouping is not a benefit to MMOs, but rather the opposite. Incentive grouping is thee way to go as it gives players options. You can choose to complete said content alone or with a group for added rewards. As for SWTOR community... it's still in it's infancy stages and once we see who decides to stay and who leaves, we will be able to better assess this area of the game.

Like the first individual who responded to the thread, I would compare it to Rift but quite a bit more played out. I think it was Shadowbane who first introduced me to the crawl stage of this type of event. Where monsters would eventually start spawning in new areas, creating nests and such and growing in size and strength, until cleared out.

This is exactly what the MMO genre needs, in order to bring back some of the background RP in MMORPG. Where the players aren't the only living breathing elements in the game.

The reason for my previous post about the OP and his guild rushing to 50 and having to deal with all the bugs doesn't apply to just TOR, nor WoW, but rather any MMO ever developed. In my almost 20 years of online gaming, I have yet to find a game where the "fast and furious" get to the endgame in the first month and not freak out from incomplete, broken or boring content.

Except for maybe DAoC, which had PvP as more of a focus.

DAoC + SWG, yummy idea.

Dear OP,

I just want to thank you and your guild for rushing to 50 and experiencing all those bugs, complaining about them and waiting for them to get fixed, while I continue to level my 2000 ALTs. Heck, my main is only 47, so I'm guessing I just might make 50 by the time all your hard work finally pays off!

THANKS!!

Originally posted by Davirok

The GW2 'you are not my bro'-fist is gonna hurt a lot to SWTOR, to the point getting its playerbase to historic minimals.

No offense, I love the fact GW and GW2 are F2P, but isn't it a little hard to compare a F2P vs. P2P? Granted, GW2 could sell a billion copies at launch, but how do you show how well its doing afterwards?