Originally posted by DeViLzzz2007

I can't imagine wanting to play either as this game has you control a whole party of 5 characters.  This might as well be called RTS which is a real pain in the butt.  I have tried similar games in the past and they always are slowing moving and fail when compared to games like WOW or Oblivion.   I recommend not playing Dragon Age .. 

First - Why would you compare a single-player game to an MMO? Are you out of your mind?
 

Second - RTS genre is the commanding of armies (generally) and this game you command a group of heroes. Much like in Final Fantasy, or let's just stay with the company like Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect or KotOR.

It appears that you didn't enjoy or like this game, which leads me to believe you don't like good games, hence you are saying WoW is somehow better than Dragon Age. I can't understand this, Dragon Age simply is the best RPG I have played Elder Scrolls III, and I love it more than that. The lore.. the characters, they are so immersive, so much more immersive than any MMO I have played.

Originally posted by AKASlaphappy

I can not say that I honestly hate WoW, since I played it for almost 4 years. But at the end of those 4 years I did get rid of the game which I have never done before! To me at least the problem with WoW is what the community has become since launch and what the developers have released that fed that mentality. In my time playing, across a bunch of servers and both factions, I saw numerous guilds fall apart over fighting for loot. I had friends that I meet and leveled with turn on each other over a sword that had a really low drop rate. After seeing all of this I realized that there really was no point in playing a MMO with this mentality! If I want to get cool loot I can play a single player game and not have to deal with all the back stabbing and fighting. After all a MMO is suppose to be about people too, that is the whole point of it being a massive multi-player game. It should not be about a endless cycle of gear and that gear being everything to the game.

 

So do I hate WoW? No!

Do I dislike what I saw the player base become and what the MMO industry for the most part has turned into?  Yes! Which to me is kind of sad, since I use to be a big fan of blizzard (I loved playing Warcraft 1 and 2 when I was a teen), and now I will never buy another game from them that has a multi-player option.

No reason to dislike Blizzard. I am slightly upset they ruined the Warcraft lore from WC2 + 3, but I would say Diablo and StarCraft are still in good shape. Matter-of-fact, they aren't (at least yet) taking either of these games to the MMO scene, so I see no reason for the IP's to go down the drain like Warcraft did.
 

SC2 and D3 are going to be really great. SC2 might finally bring the staying power the RTS competitive scene really needs and Diablo 3 hopefully will bring a new experience to the multiplayer hack-n-slash the D2 still offers.

Seradon and Xeth are probably your best bets on servers. However -

- Yes, Population is an issue. First of all, the game has four servers when I really think it should only have one or two. Then, the game is HUGE, so you won't be seeing too many people.

- No expansion? lack of content? Yes, to an extent. They do make new content, but it comes out slowly. However, there will most likely never ever be an expansion because the game has low sub count and only four developers.

It's a great game, I love it. There is no equal in terms of PvE quality in my opinion, it's just the launch effected it so much, and the engine can get annoying at times. Otherwise, if you do play.. I would find a good UI mod and enjoy it while you can!

And about Lord of the Rings - it's fun leveling if you can get groups. The endgame is pure raiding, the crafting is boring. If you like raiding and grinding the raids over and over, you'll enjoy it. It does a much better job of storytelling than World of Warcraft, however there isn't much else to do. In Vanguard, you get to raid at endgame, but I'm not sure how rewarding it is. The most fun part of the game is leveling and I have never tried endgame in Vanguard. 

Originally posted by Ragana

I know that Landroval is considered the unofficial PvE server.. Is there such designation for a PvP one as well?

 

I would doubt that, the PvP in LotRO is very limited.
 

Originally posted by Ramonski7

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

"..One of the biggest improvements in Wrath of the Lich King was more involved storytelling,..."

 

Oddly enough, this what ruined the game for me. Even in Burning Crusade, when they tried to tell the story directly, the game just seemed to get worse. The lore was really cool.. now it's terrible. 

 

Edit: OK, maybe not what ruined the game, but the lore, there's a lot of crap that ruined the game.

 

This is the harping I was talking about. Out of all the things I can think of that Blizzard screwed up......lore is the furthest thing from my mind. As a matter of fact it's one of THE top reasons people took to it so well. Burning Crusade took a central character from it's series and gave backstory on how things like death knights, the burning legion, the naga and the blood elves came to be. Death Knights, which served as the catalysis for the next chapter/expansion, were introduced in one of the most interactive intros I've witnessed so far, even surpassing the ones in Lotro and AoC for me.

 

I enjoyed it, but that's my point. To each his own. But to harp on the one thing that is the foundation of ANY mmo and think in any way shape or form that it ruined the game is a bit of a stretch.

WC3 had great story, and I thought the fact that WoW Classic didn't have a huge story behind it, made it feel more immersive. The Warcraft III story really has been destroyed recently. You can make an argument for the Burning Crusade being a decent story, I won't argue with you there, I think it's a decent enough story for Warcraft.
 

However, Arthas was a character I liked, how he turned evil from being so foolish. Then, comes the book Arthas. No, he wasn't evil! It was that silly sword! He made Arthas do all that, no wait! Arthas is keeping the Lich King from destroying Azeroth, that's it! Bolvar is now lava man and the Lich King can't break his will. So exciting. So, very exciting.

No, I think Chris Metzen asked Christie Golden to ruin WC3, because that story was just too cool for this universe. (That's sarcasm, BTW)

I loved WarCraft. Of course I am going to be interested, I've played since WarCraft: Orcs & Humans.. back then there was no story, then in WC2 and WC3, the story really took off. Now.. now we have this... a Lich King being restrained by Arthas and Lavaman.

Originally posted by Ramonski7

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

Originally posted by Hives

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

 

Cross-Server Battlegrounds killed part of the community.
 

PvP Ladder... really? Arena? Are you kidding me? Yeah, that's so new.

Cross-Server Dungeons? Man, who cares about the community, anymore, you are right!

I love when people start arguing about a game that they can stop playing at anytime so if you are complaining and still playing... You are a FOOL!. I still play the game and yes they borrowed features from other games and improved on them but feel free to go play EQ,DAOC or even UO because we all know they didn't screw those up. HA..

Uh.. well that would make sense if I still was playing WoW. Turns out, I have no account anymore and zero desire to play it ever again.
 

 

Yet you get a twinkle in your eye whenever you see a new post about your beloved WoW and can't help but to give it a bump.....how grand of you. You played it, you enjoyed it, you grew tired of it, you move on......what other reason do you have to harp?

You don't like it when people make good points about your game? I'm sorry. I don't understand what you mean.. why harp? Yes, I enjoyed and I didn't grow tired of what I enjoyed, that isn't part of the game anymore. Thanks.
 

Originally posted by Hives

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

 

Cross-Server Battlegrounds killed part of the community.
 

PvP Ladder... really? Arena? Are you kidding me? Yeah, that's so new.

Cross-Server Dungeons? Man, who cares about the community, anymore, you are right!

I love when people start arguing about a game that they can stop playing at anytime so if you are complaining and still playing... You are a FOOL!. I still play the game and yes they borrowed features from other games and improved on them but feel free to go play EQ,DAOC or even UO because we all know they didn't screw those up. HA..

Uh.. well that would make sense if I still was playing WoW. Turns out, I have no account anymore and zero desire to play it ever again.
 

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

"I know many people view WoW as the innovator in MMOs. I disagree here. WoW really did not do anything insanely creative with their game. They simply took the best ideas that were out there, packaged them better than anyone else and built a game that had a smooth play system. WoW was built on the backs of Ultima, EverQuest, and Dark Age of Camelot. All of the good ideas from these games were filtered and added into Warcraft from day one. "

Finally! Someone that doesn't have their head shoved so far up Blizzard's butt that they can actually see the light of day! I am so sick of hearing WoW did this and WoW did that. Finally someone else that agrees with me on this point.

Nice article although the whiny, over-dramatic WoW fanboys will find fault with it I'm sure.

 

And it is a NICE proof how silly mmorpg editors have become.

NOT talking about a revolutionary new cross server dungeon implementation in patch 3.3 but resorting to OLD HAT and very silly  arguments of WHO invented WHAT and at which time...of GAMES already dead .... YEARS ago.

The only thing lacking in the article is references to Mac Donalds and Britney Spears.

The article didn't even cite the MOST important introduced factor in WOW since the clustered BG's and ladder based PvP system: the cross server dungeons.

Welcome to mmorpg.com: the dead site about dead discussions.

Cross-Server Battlegrounds killed part of the community.
 

PvP Ladder... really? Arena? Are you kidding me? Yeah, that's so new.

Cross-Server Dungeons? Man, who cares about the community, anymore, you are right!

"..One of the biggest improvements in Wrath of the Lich King was more involved storytelling,..."

Oddly enough, this what ruined the game for me. Even in Burning Crusade, when they tried to tell the story directly, the game just seemed to get worse. The lore was really cool.. now it's terrible. 

Edit: OK, maybe not what ruined the game, but the lore, there's a lot of crap that ruined the game.

Even if this is true, a shutdown I don't see as likely. Unless the game is doing worse than I thought.. 

Originally posted by Zorndorf

My favorite thing about WOW is that I no longer need to jump from game to game and have to relearn EVERYTHING from scratch once I hopped in.

All old wargamers/ fantasy gamers know what I speak off:

16 pages of rules for The Russian Campaign, 64 pages of rules of Third Reich, 128 pages of some XXX that wrote a British miniatures war game. 300 Pages of Advanced Squal Leader and 5 books from Ad&D and 10 Army books for the Warhammer miniatures TT game.

And the rest of the 500 games, stocked in my attic.

After having searched for 24 years in video games, 32 years in miniatures and  34 years in board wargames/fantasy P&P, I found the holy grail of what makes a game thick to me.

ALL IN. No hastle, just play and have fun withhout looking back.

 Seriously, the only thing that lacks in Wow for me is an historical background (as I am really into military history), but from a fantasy standpoint, it is "all in".

 

While I agree the fantasy setting is well-made. I think the lore is shot. It's terrible now, ever since The Burning Crusade the lore has gone downhill. I really loved the lore from WC2 - Pre-BC.
 

Originally posted by Shannia

Originally posted by Regnevanz

Originally posted by Kyleran
/Snip blah blah wow fanboi rant

Compared to the performance of L1/L2, Aion is a big hit in the West, but it ceertainly is no WOW.

 

Actually I remember the wow launch it had around 200k sales at the time - so yeah Aion thus far is in better shape.

Just to put your comment in perspective.  Before WoW, most gamers didn't even know what an MMORPG was.  No game ever had a launch of more than 150k subscribers before WoW.  When WoW sold out their 175,000 initial boxs within the first week of release, it was a shockwave that PC Gaming world had not seen before in regards to MMORPGs.  Thanks to the success of WoW, games like WAR, AoC, AION, etc are able to sell many several hundred thousand more than WoW did.
The difference is that while WoW initially sold 175k copies, it has steadily grown to over 12 million subscribers we have today.  For what ever reason, new released games are failing miserably at concurrent subscriber rates.  Some of the rare exceptions to this include WoW, LOTRO, and EVE.  It's obvious that Blizzard, Turbine, and CCP are doing something right and the rest of these companies are having difficulties duplicating their success.

 

 

Another thing to note is this: WoW should have sold more! They stopped sending boxes - told retailers to stop selling, because they wanted to get the server problem under control.
 

Originally posted by Hadorak

I can't believe Turbine made DDO F2P hoping to increase revenues instead of offering a station pass to all their games and include AC2 servers. Turbine has AC2 fans begging to give them money and they won't take it!!

If Turbine offered a special, and I mean special, (like the rainbow eep) in-game item for previous AC2 players for returning and a second item for new accounts you bring with you, AC2 would be in the green in the first 90 days. I mean the game is already done. Ya, like most games it could use a few more tweaks, but the millions in developement is already done and paid for!!

millions of dollars in IP collecting dust instead of dollars.  It's hard to believe their CFO is ok with that.

It's unfortunate that they let Microsoft manage this game at the beginning. if they had a better launch (AoC's launch was leagues better), they may have had a better retention rate, more advertisements, more hype, more a lot of things. Unfortunately that didn't happen, and unfortunately this game may never come back again.
 

I mean in any form at all, because, Turbine squashed a emu effort and I think there is a german group working on one, but it's hard to tell if they are actively working on it or not, and no word from Turbine if they will bring it back. :(

I don't know.. unsubscribing or selling my account. One of those is my favorite part.

Honestly, playing pre-1.9 Paladin and the fact that the game was still an MMORPG back then, was my favorite part. 

Yeah, I don't really care that the game had balance issues, the game was so fun, and that's all that matters. I am just going to play AoC for the time being.. considering I built my entire computer for the game. My hope is maybe Turbine will re-launch the game as an F2P game, which is highly doubtful.

Also, I know that FE and VG have great crafting, matter-of-fact, I love VG's crafting, but the game itself is just hard to get into when you know it has 4 developers and never an expansion will be released. I wanted to try FE, but it's hard for me to get into post-apocalyptic settings. 

Ever since I have delved into the MMORPG landscape with Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings nearly seven years ago, I have never experienced a game I loved and held dear as much as AC2. (I still have the box to look at whenever I want to think about the good ol' days, and the bad days when I first bought it)

 I've looked long and hard for a game that brougth what AC2 had. I went to EQ -> SWG -> L2 and then to WoW. I really enjoyed WoW up and until 1.9 - 1.10, and I think those patches really killed the game for me. It wasn't as good as AC2 to me, but it was as close as anything has been for me. 

What I think I miss, what the simple, but effective crafting (esp. while leveling), but more importantly the skill system. I LOVED the skill system. The fact you could go melee then specialize in ranged or magic.. the whole system just had me in love. And, I wonder is there another game out there that has gone with this system that I am missing? I know that maybe the whole no attribute points isn't anywhere, but the skill system I wonder.. because I miss that, and I miss the great community AC2 had.

I'm just uneasy about resubbing to Age of Conan before I regret it.

Originally posted by Deleted User

I'm with the OP.   MMOGs are dead now..  I'm out.

Dead? Really? 20 million + is dead?
 

Originally posted by Raltar

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

I just wouldn't call it a popular MMO, most people I talk to wouldn't know what it is if I hadn't told them.
 

 

"Most people" also play WoW. It doesn't make them right... or smart.

Yet, I didn't say most people, I said that I talk to. So that is obviously you attacking my choice of friends, thanks.
 

Originally posted by Raltar

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

It was popular? I believe between the four "big" MMOs back then: DAoC, AC, EQ and UO.. it was last.
 

 

DAoC came out YEARS after EQ and AC, so you can't really compare them. The fact that AC was even still considered one of the "big four" after that many years and after that many other games were released should speak to the fact that it was an excellent game that people liked enough to still be playing it.

And besides, this isn't a contest between AC and DOaC. Its between AC and Vangaurd. How freakin popular do you have to be to beat Vanguard? As long as more than two people are online at one time you pretty much have the contest locked up.

You were saying Asheron's Call was popular, as a good point, and I'm not going to defend Vanguard's popularity since it has none. Sure, AC beats VG. I just wouldn't call it a popular MMO, most people I talk to wouldn't know what it is if I hadn't told them.
 

I liked Asheron's Call 2's skill system. You added to what you wanted, and if you didn't want that anymore you had to de-train and get experience to unlearn those skills. Also, you could go melee, and then specialize later into a magic-based tree. (Such as your basic skills were melee, and your advanced tree were one of the two magical specialization you could go.)

I think WoW's talent system is really hard to beat as well, it's simple and easy to understand. However, the game has been dumbed down so much that customization in the trees is all but lost.