I like the idea of an open PK area, but I imagine too many players duking it out in one area would require more resources than they can or would like to devote, plus that sort of thing is a magnet for drama queens and balance nazis.

What would still be fun and might be more feasable in the context of what they already have is being able to set your party as PK legal to each other. It wouldn't be too effective for PVE of course, but that way you and some friends (or strangers) could go off and fight each other in any dungeon you like without anybody else (or their PVE rage) getting involved.

It's the people who get upset over this stuff who are emotionally disturbed, not the ones who are enjoying it. One shotting low level players is poor form because it denies them the humilation of a properly drawn out murder. That aside, the way this works is it's in our interests both to keep them alive for as long as possible. We self-heal from attacking them, and if they die they don't turn zombie and can't help us. And won't want to if we've pissed them off.

Zombie players aren't griefing anyone. We're doing what we're supposed to do as part of the event. The people who are out of line are the ones who behave as though they have a right to not have their progress bar humping disrupted by a world event. It's not as if this was a surprise to anyone. WoW has a history of this and MMOs in general have a history of it.

LotRO by a mile, if you consider that almost everything people think it copied from WoW actually came from Asheron's Call 2. It also has the only achievements system worth a damn, a lot of interesting skills, and a seriousness you don't find in other games. It's too bad the game's so damned boring. I went back to it over the summer but it put me to sleep.

EQ2 has plenty of interesting ideas, and RF Online is also pretty unique.

Well I just want to say I think that's really terrible. You couldn't turn in your quest, and I bet your quest was pretty important. What right have grief players to interfere with your obsessive-compulsive behavior? Blizzard should not be censoring the opinions of people who complain on their forums about such a dire situation as this and with such well thought-out arguments. Everybody's opinion is important, and you're not just a bunch of whining children who ought to be taken away in dumptrucks. You're World of Warcraft players, and you deserve to be treated with respect.

People want the game to be easier. We want the quest guy to have a sign over him, we want the box of treasure to glow, we want the flowers you can click on to glitter. And thank God we no longer have to keep track of all those crazy poison recipes.

We want better armor not so we can experience the next raid dungeon, but secretly so we can PVP better. Because having a stats advantage in PVP makes you a better player, and it vindicates your lifestyle choices.

World of Warcraft is rough going already. If they made it so you can actually die while questing, no one would play. Let the paladins have their massive damage. It's been clear for some time now that they really, really need it.

what

Originally posted by SwampRob

For me, my most hated aspect of MMOs is the intentional time-sinks.   Yes, playing an MMO is going to eat up your time.   However, having (in the case of Wow) a griffon flight take 10 real time minutes while I just stare at the screen is a ridiculous and fully intentional timesink.    Same with having a bar take 45-60 seconds to complete while I craft one item.   Wow is hardly the only one guilty of this, but that's my biggest complaint with MMOs. 

The griffon rides aren't time sinks, they are downtime. It's possible that wasn't Blizzard's intention but I think it was, because they put a lot of thought into exactly where the ride takes you; by zig zagging between landmarks it acts as both a preview of what's to come and a reminder of what you're done with. (Granted there are some sloppy bits, most notably along the rivers bordering Elwynn and Azshara.)

So I don't think they made longer trips to the more popular dungeons by accident, for instance. It gets people away from the computer for a minute, and more importantly it creates time for guild drama and secret plots and backstabbing. If there's one thing we know they've got down to a science it's drama. 

Of all the loathsome and ridiculous ways people can gain advantage and renown in WoW, you people are upset someone might get a fancy hat for a few bucks or +5 to their fishing pole because they live with their parents? What the hell difference does it make? People enjoy spending money on imaginary crap, and that's what you do every time you tire of the game but keep your account active so you don't lose your raiding spot.

Spending real money on imaginary crap is the only reason you own a computer. It's probably the only reason you own a car.

The PVE > PVP transfers are a long time coming. When there was a whole lot of open PVP going on, and no leveling guilds with endgame players, you could argue it was more difficult to level on a PVP realm and thus we should be treated as an elite, but it's just not possible to corpse camp lowbies anymore. The only way to get griefed in WoW is by gesturing condescendingly at your attacker then talking trash about him on general chat. If world PVP makes leveling difficult for you in WoW, it because you're a rotten human being.

Never mind that you're supposed to be leveling in an open PVP environment because you enjoy the challenge and the surprises, not because you get a gold star in Heaven for being hardcore.

But no, let's protect neurotic people's meaningless epeen rather than let customers play where they want. If rerolling and duplicating 40 or 50 levels on a new server is that much of a chore for you, you must be some kind of a loser, right?

Oh man you are such a dork. I have NEVER had an experience like that, ever. Especially not an erotic one.

Sorry, hold on a minute.

No it's nothing, I just had something in my eye.

Sorry, where was I? Right, Warhammer. What kind of a diseased, perverted shut-in are you anyway? Dark Elves don't even have horns or a tail - what's the appeal?

That would depend who or what you are referring to as Cartoon. They are real screenshots. Are you asking if they are cel animated or hand drawn? What difference does it make? The game looks like that now; it might look different someday.

The game is clearly supposed to look like OT concept art. You know, the incredibly obscure paintings by some random guy named Ralph McQuarrie and his anonymous band of nobodies at whatever that company is called. You may have seen their work in the back of some abandoned gallery somewhere, if you're a die hard science fiction nut or something.

Originally posted by darkzadeo

thanx for the  game it looks great theres only 1 problume it says its a f2p put when i tried to download it i had to pay for the download.

if u know how to download and play it for free cud u plz tell me

I assume that was directed to me, since Dungeon Runners and PlaneShift have no mention of any sort of payment anywhere. Shadowbane is indeed entirely free; I suspect you ran into FilePlanet's pay scheme, which is optional, but for free downloads there you may need to wait and you'll have to make an account etc.

Long story short get it from GamerShell instead.

Definitely other.

Terrible chat and matchmaking systems that stifle conversation and prevent people from finding one another. Almost all modern MMOs have no universal chat and are unclear about what channels you are on and who you're talking to. Developers refuse to copy basic conveniences from other games as though their honor depended upon it. As though they weren't copying everything else they could get their hands on.

Too much instant travel, along with this incomprehensible rise in the popularity of instancing, means fewer chance encounters and none of the nomadic mini-communities that used to happen at leveling hubs. It's nice to have options and not be forced to level in a certain area, but being able to teleport all over the place means you see a different group of people every time you return to your outpost. Some of that is fine. I don't like that it's now always the case. Thank God for the Barrens - at least you can still hate somebody there.

Terrible as the NGE may have been, the main reason SWG can't pick up steam isn't how silly it is now or whether it's a sandbox or crafting haven or etc. A lot of people have tried it since all that happened, and a lot of people would be happy to drop a grudge if it meant just being able to play an MMO in a Star Wars setting - but we CAN'T, because the chat setup and social options are set up so that you can't find ANYBODY to play with.

The game gives you no clarity whatsoever about what channel you're on and who can hear you. If there's a means of finding out where the other players are I sure as hell couldn't figure it out, and this was my third time subscribing to the game.

Same problem with The Matrix Online, and not much better in Vanguard.

This from a company whose flagship titles have probably the best chat systems, matchmaking, and contacts management in the field.

I cannot wrap my head around the notion that SOE wants at all to succeed.

Who said anyone loved Turbine? People love LotRO because it's mostly an excellent game for what it is, but in my experience few people who've formed a serious opinion of Turbine based on their record have any love for them as a company. Also consider that most of the individuals responsible for that overall very dismal record are gone now.

Having said that, Funcom's overall track record is actually very good, and the person responsible for much of the bad is now similarly gone from that company. Meanwhile, Sirillion was one of the hardest working people in the MMO industry before he even worked in it professionally (plus he's a good person), and there's no reason to believe AoC won't eventually shine just as Anarchy Online and LotRO do.

Guild Wars.

Apart from the crafting, it's exactly what you're looking for, and there's a little bit of crafting - not terribly deep stuff but satisfying in its way.

PVP is entirely instanced and there is lots of it. Many arenas for both organized and pickup teams at all levels.

Some of the best looking costumes and character designs in an MMO, and the devs are adamant about not basing the endgame on item acquisiition, so instead of better stats once you hit max level you'll be trying to get better fashion.

Everything is in zones and the zones can be fairly linear but they will also have sections you can bypass, and the total countryside in just one of the games is pretty big - if you go for all four it's enormous. (With 200+ hours /played and three max level characters the most I've seen of any one continent is about 30%.) It can take several hours just to explore the newbie zone. You won't find too many lost civilizations or talkative hermits but if you enjoy exploring for epic scenery I think GW's overworld will more than suffice.

As has been said all of the adventuring areas are instanced, but many of them are connected to hubs for pugs to form at. It's actually a perfect game for two - you're each limited to 3 NPC "Hero" henchmen over which you have some control, and the maximum party size is 8. (If I remember right you will need Nightfall to use Heroes, but without them you can still party with up to 7 NPC henchmen. They just aren't as powerful as the Hero characters and you don't control them directly.)

For much of the PVP there will be a bit of pressure to buy unlocks from ArenaNet's lame F2P-style cash shop, but you can get all that through PVE if you work at it (not through grinding but by capturing skills from boss mobs), and you can still PVP with Heroes or do pugs.

The first three games - Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall - are each standalone but connect together if you purchase more than one. Eye of the North is a traditional expansion for which you'll need one of the other three.

If you like questing, Factions has some of the most brutal and surprising quests I've seen in a game. They can be really harrowing. I also think it's the best looking and sounding of the games, but I'm in the minority. Most consider Nightfall the best, and you should know that the first several hours of Prophecies will be in a very bleak setting. Personally I found it too depressing and I quit the game until Factions came out.

How did that saying go - I wrote a long letter because I didn't have time to write a short one? :)

Shadowbane!

Dark fantasy in a really cool setting with good background lore, terrible graphics, absolutely nothing to it but killing monsters and fighting other players. And the best mage class I've ever seen. The wizard class in SB gets a pet demon, long distance teleportation, group recall, lots of damage-over-time & root attacks. It's a bit like WoW's warlock but with arguably more to do and you have to be a lot more careful.

It's a really fun game and it's totally free, but be prepared for a tough experience getting used to the controls (they work almost exactly like Guild Wars once you set it up right), you'll need to put some time into finding a guild if you're going to advance into high levels, and be warned the PVP allows looting of everything you aren't wearing. It's been compared to Eve, but to me it's more like a 3D fantasy answer to SubSpace.

Age of Conan . . . All the more disappointing because Funcom should have learned so much from Anarchy Online, not just its failures but its many eventual successes. How could we not expect something more ambitious than AO for their followup offering? But even the things Funcom has proposed for the distant future are less sophisticated than stuff they added to AO years ago.

Pirates of the Burning Sea . . . I never really got as far as the sailing. They lost me at the swordfighting on the boats and the running around in cities. Here they were with all this hype and all these innovations and Sony behind them, and the control of basic human forms in the most ordinary environments possible are more awkward and stilted than anything out there, present or past. And that counts the Earth & Beyond beta. This is the one game I would not try again even if you installed it for me and paid for it.

Asheron's Call 2 . . . My favorite game of all time - destroyed by unfettered cheating, a chat system that somehow broke several months after launch, Turbine's foolishness in the face of the problem, and Microsoft's terrible act of apparent decency in allowing them to walk off with the rights to the game and go independent. Three months after releasing an expansion pack Turbine announced the game would be shutting down, and three months after that the servers were turned off - on New Year's Eve, if I remember correctly. Turbine will not discuss with anyone any path to reviving the game, and their website treats it as if it never existed.

Originally posted by pain2scars 

First of all, some of us have lost our loved ones in this world and have no one. Not everyone is blessed to have a family like you. And I hope you never take that for granted because there are people out there that would love to have a family. Therefore, having no one in the "real world" to turn to, some turn to MMORPGs, to take us out of the real world and the reality of it all, if not for a few hours a day, and get to be part of a family in the game world. And to those people who know what I mean, that means alot.

I really think you should do what is best for you and your own circumstances in your life, whether it be you quit MMORPGs for good or not. But if you do quit, please do not try to encourage others to do the same. Especially when you do not know every single person's circumstance in their life.

Either way, good luck and I wish you all the best!

Seconded, but not only this. What the OP is really proposing - though he surely knows it can't actually happen so he probably hasn't considered the ramifications of being responsible for it happening - is obliterating a pleasure that for some of us is idle fun but for others is pretty essential.

If you think about it, he wants to destroy something that for many people is an important and irreplaceable source for a basic need which they otherwise could not acquire in real life for possibly very justifiable reasons. Can't afford to build or rebuild some aspect of their real lives in terms of either money or time or their present emotional capacity. Kind of rotten of him, isn't it?

Even if you don't need to rely on games for an outlet of any sort, loving a game and having no one to play it with sucks, that that's what would happen if all of us who don't "need" MMOs just quit out of some nonsensical and pointless moral outrage. And some of us (maybe most of us) do go out of our way not just to enjoy the games ourselves but to make them enjoyable for others - just as you might strike up a conversation with someone new at a bar where you are a regular, or in the same way you'd try to make everyone comfortable at a party where you are the host.

On reflection I think the OP's post is fighting words.

Rohan.

It hasn't got the most beautiful landscape or the best frill, but it's got a variety of scenery and a whole lot of frill. Mainly what it has is excellent flghting animations, lots of them, which combined with decent spell effects and a variety of strong sound effects & battle shouts creates a powerful sense of fast motion and hard impacts.

The characters are all supermodels, they get a new outfit every two levels, and you don't get a clown suit from having two pieces of one set and two pieces of the other. Everything looks good together, probably because everything is red and blue and made out of teapot doilies.

The monsters are genuinely awful. The kind of awful where, even with no reward involved, when you encounter monsters way below your level, you'll spend minutes at a time just murdering them because they god damn deserve it and you hate them for being alive. Really satisfying monsters to kill in this game, and like I said it's guilt free cause they have it coming.

The game has a bad reputation because it's simply impossible for normal people to reach the endgame, but as someone who plays it for the basic hack & slash it's the one F2P game I keep coming back to. Easily the best sound design of the many eastern MMOs I've played, and though it's easy to let it work from behind the scenes I think how a game sounds has a much bigger effect on the overall feel & experience of a game than do the graphics.

And yes about Shadowbane. It's funny how, with no graphical improvements, that game looks better now than it did when it came out.

I'm going to wait in line outside GameStop in the cold, and at midnight when they open the doors I shall set fire to myself in the street to protest the intellectual laziness of the common man.