i believe it. i lost my sight in an OS 25man 3 drakes, currently blind but i still manage to stay on top of those damage charts.

If you are looking to have fun in a game, Warcraft has all of these things your describing, but leveling has been accelerated some since the lower level populations are shrinking (but will be huge again after expansion). People will tell you that you are inferior for playing what is in their opinion an easy game, just spit in their eye (most of these people never complete/attempt the harder achievements).

Lots of content to explore in warcraft, it has a has a huge world (almost seemless, very little zoning)

The caveat here is that the rep it gets for having alot of immature players is true, but theres an ignore button and lots of decent guilds that can nearly eliminate these people from your game experience.

cataclysm alpha is pretty sweet guys. currently playing an ogre faceroller, the new top dps/tank/cc hybrid in the game. im currently specialized in the "double faceroll" talent tree and its working out well in the new battleground "space jam" if you cant tell by the name, its a basketball theme BG in outerspace. fuckin epic, and fits nicely into the lore since michael jordan is the new alliance race.  i am currently dual wielding two epic raptor mounts as weapons and a kodo back up for when i offtank.

best part is the new mini continent called "sandbox and shovel" where veteran players go and cry their asses off.

you guys should really jump on this one.

pics coming soon.

Are you hacking? Reviews and videos suggest that is the correct way to play. Have fun stealing ships taking to the sky.

Originally posted by osc8r

Anything that nulls player input [and thus skill] doesn't belong in competitive (read: PVP) games, period.

Ahh, how I miss you AC1.

Preparing your character to defend against and respond to CC is an essential skill in pvp. If you don't you die, and your credibility to define skill is in question.

you eliminated every choice out there. have you considered the possibility that you secretly hate this genre?

can these old computers play wow or diablo 2?? if so...good luck to all the poor people and their gold farming endeavors, i hope you ninja all the loots so you can buy your family some food stuffs and bling.

Dumb people play games. Smart people make games for dumb people to buy and pay a monthly fee for. Sorry you had to hear about it like this.

might be worth resubbing for this, looks like fun. im curious though, where are the wow haters to put this down?

busy crying in private since their game will never touch anything this dynamic?

theres the bait. whos going to take it??

Originally posted by Vesilis

If you have fun playing WoW consistently then you are beyond hope already.

 

WoW wasn't the worst MMO I've ever played. All the F2P games that try to copy WoW exactly were worse.

Ya people who actually enjoy what they spend their money on are morons. Are you going to insult people who play checkers next?

this is the wow killer we have been waiting for.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by jevtyrn

How many games have gone live in the last three years and have not completely flopped?

 

Not really. The answer is:

• Tabula rasa &
• The matrix online

Every other game can still be experienced if somebody wants to make an account.

 Considering your answers and assuming your a person of average intelligence, you answered my question opposite of how I worded it. I asked for the ones that still maintain decent subs. I'll give it to you that our points on a "flop" are understandably different. I consider it any game that has completely fallen off the radar. Age of Conan and Warhammer Online are games like this, both new games with tremendous hype. Both crashed in popularity as soon as they went live. Dungeons and Dragons Online, released in 2006, just announced a free to play option. I would not consider this great news in the eyes of a developer. On top of these titles, I really just cant think of ANY good MMOs released in the last three years. So again if someone could just make a shortlist of recent titles that are fun and polished games, i would actually be thankful.

Also, because I am a jerk, The Matrix Online went live in 2005 so it really doesnt fall in the category of my question.

How many games have gone live in the last three years and have not completely flopped? Ok thats rhetorical, but the answer is the quick version of why I played wow for so long. Polished gameplay doesnt seem to get the respect its due these days, which is probably why so many developers dont care if they go live with crap now.

Im also confused with the OP saying that the game after max level is "blah" suggesting that you didnt really play the game after that or attempt any of the achievements. My experience is really the opposite, since the game is so max level focused its pretty rare now to find lower level groups that are not being carried by a max level character. Since lower levels stopped regularly grouping the game in my opinion is "blah" and then level 80 happens (60,70,80,90, for those of you reading this post in a time machine), and then you play warcraft.

From a distance  darkfall looks like crap. if i knew there were more of these flying boat wars going on i might get aboard, takes me back to old planetside pvp in medieval weapons. so can i be dropped over enemy cities and hack their defenses too?

A 5 - 10 in the lower section of a tower? Its OBVIOUSLY Kurn's Tower from Everquest, Ruins of Kunark!!! train inc!

Ultima Online handled this with the best and simplest solution. Two mirror worlds. New players start in the safe world with the easier monsters and freedom from gank. Players can graduate to the "hardcore" world at any time when they are ready for harder mobs, want to loot player corpses and hide, or are just wandering into a gate and have no idea what theyre getting themselves into.

Having two worlds also benefits a problem that I have heard Darkfall having (and only heard about so dont blast me on this) the scarcity of land now. When you double the space you can put buildings on, higher end and more serious guilds can have their bases in this harder world with greater benefits (resources,loot, ect).

Agree/Disagree?

come on guys, lets play some D&D. Real hardcore action, who will be the healer?

Originally posted by redhands123 

lol EXACTLY! A hardcore game would scare the shit out of people with its super harsh death penalties / ganking / SUPER un-user-friendly gameplay / difficult combat thrown in there for good measure.

It would also scare the shit out of any company potentially interested in financing such a game. I dont disagree that something like this would be fun, but I think its ultimately impossible in this market to make a decent hardcore game and maintain the subs to keep it healthy.

Suggestion: If you want to play a hardcore game with harsh penalties and realistic combat situations, return to RPG roots and play you pen and paper RPG of choice. I like these because they have the fairest death penalty, permenant (unless someone drags your chopped up corpse to a cleric) As an added benefit, these games do not have subscription fees, you can even get all of the rules directly from the internet so you wont have to buy books.

Warcraft is hardcore when you play 5 shamans at once in pvp. Even more hardcore when you are able to kill these hydras.

40 man raids were awful! Yes lets let Jimmy the Tulip the level 60 rogue auto attack and eat a sandwich while everyone else busts their ass to get to the end and when the loot rolls happen he rolls better and gets ultra rare T2 trash drop while everyone else that busted their nuts comes out with a hide or nothing at all. Oh better yet lets go with the user created DKP system and let Jimmy the Tulip rub his balls and auto attack everything while the tank dies for him and the other 38 members and have him grab nice loot just because hes there and auto attacking. You cant tell if he is auto attacking or just doing absoutly nothing or maybe hes just spamming backstab while he watches The George Lopez show. At any rate he can be an anchor on the raid and he gets nice crap and people who are actually good and trying can walk away with nothing. That was whats wrong with 40 man raids and the current MMO loot system. WAR actually cured this somewhat with the PQ loot system which they neglected to add into end game dungeons. Although WAR fails because of their random as balls RvR loot system that lets someone just as useless randomly win loot in that too.
 

Well damage/healing meters are the ultimate judge of who pulls their weight. The new ulduar instance is actually challenging for every role including tanks. On top of the 10 and 25man versions each boss can be defeated under hard mode circumstances which result in better loot. So instead of finding 40 average players, you need 25 pretty good players to down some of the hard mode bosses.