Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by ghoul31

You can stand around and watch corn grow in real life. But you can't  kill dragons or or people in real life.

 

 

Well, you can't kill Dragons...

literal lol.

Originally posted by Calintz333

MUD

truth.  Text MUDs were the originators.  When I first logged into EQ or WoW my estimation of how good the game was had to do with how well the critical MUD features were translated over into a GUI.  For me, this is where WoW really wins.

As for the text in the boxes, and all those notifications you get about everything all the time (in text), the only difference between this and an oldschool MUD is that you've got it coming out in a pretty box overlaying a 3d environment.

Got back into an old character here recently: http://www.aardwolf.com/ .  MUDs are not dead.

Ryzom as recently announced to continue to be free until January.  It's worth a look, actually.  I played some last week and was fairly impressed.  If you're a graphics addict, they're kind of dated, but the skills / xp system is pretty interesting.

Originally posted by Loke666

Quest should be long chains that ends with an epic fight, not kill 20 bears. EQ2 got actually some really great quests like it's Heritage quests but it also got even worse farming quests than Wow.

The "Book" quests (epic storyline) in LOTRO are similar to the EQ2 heritage quests.  Typically they are a series of quests in the overland which may or may not include downing some sub-boss or finding some rare items.  The Books are divided into Chapters, so you can always advertise explicitly what you need a group for (e.g., LFG Book 12.3).  The final chapter in each book is usually a massive boss fight in an instanced zone, lead by an NPC.

Some of the chapters are solo friendly, some are not.  The resulting loot is typically excellent for the level.

(I did play some heritage quests on EQ2 a few years back, before I got caught by the WoW bug... )

Could we please leave the Guildwars is/isnot a MMORPG argument lie dormant for a while and get back to arguing about something important,

like darkfall is/isnot real

OR

how bad SOE did the SWG vets with the CU and NGE and can we get a pre-CU server???  

Come on guys! THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Longtime MMO veteran myself... (typical pedigree.  UO, EQ2, SWG, WoW, EVE etc..) Currently not playing WOTLK, just not convinced.  Having a lot of fun in LOTRO, though.  My kin is great.  Very mature, laid-back, and I think we are all parents or grandparents so no pressure when something "unplanned" happens that needs to be seen to.

Additionally, I decided to give Ryzom a try last night.  I don't know what I thought it was, but it was definitely NOT what I thought it would be.  I started off with the idea of focusing on harvesting, and once I was in the game it took me about 15 minutes to say "this reminds me an awful lot of the old SWG...".  Once I got the mineral tracking and prospecting going, it did remind me of running out on the dunes looking for mins.  The graphics are kind of quaint, and so far the combat is pretty standard, but the skill system where you can set your own skill parameters is pretty great.  A level-less (one might argue a 4x level, but that's another point of view) system where you get xp for what you're doing is a nice change.  Ended up burning several hours there.

Originally posted by heremypet

 

LOL I heard that game had boring content, cost way too much, massive timesink, and whats this I hear about nazi swines?

Come on, we're on MMORPG.com right?  "massive timesink" is kind of a given... ;)

I actually also vote for Guildwars, although to be technically true to the question LOTRO is nice also (if you buy a lifetime subscription, it has no monthly...)