You're right, mostly.

Pre-NGE never felt like a grind to me...but that was because of how great teh community was.  So many dancers and musicians in the Cantinas, bloody wars on the ground....ahhh.  The player based economy was sweet too.  Besides, you weren't grinding levels.  You were just killing stuff and sometimes you would get a nastier attack because of it.  Adding levels to the mix made it feel like twice the grind for me.  I had a constant reminder of how much more I needed to kill.

I digress, it may well be quicker to grind those levels however.  I've just played too many Classic MMO's...and the level grind has wore on me.  I need something more open now, have needed it since I lost this game.  I've always wondered about Eve, maybe I should look into that one.

Originally posted by saay

Originally posted by Lunchbox76

 

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Originally posted by saay

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Originally posted by Gishgeron

 

I think an important thing to realize here is that public voice is all we have anymore to rely on for information. All media is severely tainted these days by advertising. If a company does wrong, the only way we can be sure to KNOW is through other people telling us about it.

Vets are so aggressive about this matter because the conflict is terrible. We all expect our MMO's to change over time, little things here and there....some polish to things we already like. No one expects a complete trashing of a game you enjoyed to be remade into a game that holds nearly no semblance to the thing you loved. Its essentially a bait and switch. I realize that means little to the player that hasn't endured it. I don't often bring it up to them. But it does set a standard for how the company behind it operates. That standard is something I feel important for everyone to know. At least if they know, then I don't feel like someone is robbing them. At that point, they are just robbing themselves, if indeed any such "Robbing" were to occur.

But you can't hate on people who strive to voice their view on SOE. That information is important to new consumers, and its info you can't get anywhere else because of how tight lipped reviewers are anymore. The Used Car Dealer example given above was very good. As community, gamers have to look out for and protect one another. Just like any other community. We have to because the corporate end of this spectrum will NOT.

As always, its not that SWG may not be fun now....its that the guys running this show have NO qualms about completely destroying everything you may like about it eventually....for no other reason than the fact THEY feel they understand better than YOU what it is YOU want to play. I, for one, don't even want to give it a chance. I'll not be made a fool of twice.

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I can hate on players who pull out numbers/facts from thin air to any new/returning player questioning in the discussion forum, especially when they havent played the game for 2+ years; they're opinion is severly distorted due to their anger, for some strange reason these peopleallow this anger, which should have gone by now, to manifest itself by trying to make sure other people dont enjoy the game.
They did show qualms and apologised - different people run the game now anyway.

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Last time I checked Smedly was still in charge.

I was refering to the development team. Anyway Smedly accepted the NGE was a mistake and thats why they are trying to improve they game, and IMHO succeeding

My persoal issue with that (again, my issue...not for everyone) is that admitting it was a mistake and then continuing to do it is pretty stupid.  If a guy walked up to you and said "Hey, I snort coke and its not a good ideal" but then continued to do it, you would probably consider him a fool.

Smedly messed up, and admits it...but doesn't do the ONE thing he could to fix it.  Its not even hard, I KNOW they still have that data somewhere.  Admitting NGE was a mistake should have been step one in realizing that the majority of his players wanted the playstyle and character advancement of old-school SWG.  By not changing it back, he shows that he still really doesn't care what we think at all.  He will force this system on us...even if he knows it won't work.

Besides...honestly, if you want a game that levels like WoW and plays like WoW...why not just play WoW?  They have more polish to their system and lightyears more players to back it up.  To beat all...they make so much more money from those players that they can afford more devs and GMs to keep that game running at top notch.  All SWG can do is flounder with its minimal income and skeleton crew that comes as a result.  I have no ideal what they were thinking in the first place.  To try and compete by fighting fire with fire...silly gooses just made the first fire bigger is all.  By running off all the players they had.

Anyone so dumb as to complain about delays in release deserve whatever piece of crap game they get as a result of NOT doing it.

Delay = Good in ANY fashion its presented as far as MMO's are concerned.  Everytime I see a crappy MMO...I just KNOW it is because they didn't spend enough time polishing it before release.  Remember, most players only EVER give an MMO one shot.  If that one shot is a crappy release...then that game just lost the vast majority of its potential playerbase.  It takes alot more than word of mouth to recover from that kind of blow.

Trust me, they know what they are doing on this matter.  I'd be more worried over the lack of Open Beta...but the leaked videos I've seen have been really impressive thus far.

Originally posted by TawniXLucas

I can't really tell if Shaiya is a good or bad  game. Anybody want to help me decide? Here's what I've heard:

-NPCS are funny

-Quests aren't retarded

-Graphics are amazing (nextgen)

-PvP causes permadeath?

-Not a total grindfest

First, this game already has TONS of quests.  Doing them will practically remove any need to buy armor EVER.  IF you like quests in MMO's, this game delivers thus far.

PvP is pretty good, you take portals to "Border lands" where you can engage the other faction.  Losing does not cost you xp, but killing someone (Or being in a group which does) will reward you xp.  PvP has been rough so far for me...Melee classes will find it tough early on because they simply do not have the tools to prevent runners. 

Lag is a non issue, even with the server being nearly capped out by the influx of new players I only suffer in the most overloaded cities.  Even then it does not prevent me from having rather decent gameplay considering.

Graphics are not top of the line, but they pay special attention to details that I find VERY appealing.  The Flora displayed in all of the terrains have been darn pretty.  OVerall, the graphics are very nice for a game which can run on outdated systems.  Naturally, they lack some polish that larger scale MMO's will have...but the gameplay makes up for it.

The permadeath thing is ONLY enabled on Extreme Mode Characters.  To unlock Extreme Mode you must have leveled a character to 50 on Normal, and again on Hard.  Extreme Mode is only for the most hardcore of players, and was designed to offer those players something.  The reward for being in that mode is a vastly greater Stat point and Skill point gain per level.  Don't worry though, most of them won't even make it past mid-level because they will be walking targets for abuse.

The UI is a pretty familiar setup, most Major Classic MMO's use the very same Hotkey bar design.  The QUEST UI, however, is above and beyond ANYTHING you will find.  The map (Mini and regular) always display, as dots, both quests you can pick up AND quests you can turn in.  No more wondering where to go next, nor forgetting where to turn a quest in.  Its very convieniently labeled on you maps so you never have to worry about it. 

The game has its easter eggs too....if you watch for them :P. 

Overall, in the FTP market, I rate this game an EASY 8-9/10.  Against P2P competitors it would STILL earn a favorable 7/10 to me.  I was one of the first involved in the Closed Beta when it came out, I have no doubts this game is worth playing for a good number of us.

  I think an important thing to realize here is that public voice is all we have anymore to rely on for information.  All media is severely tainted these days by advertising.  If a company does wrong, the only way we can be sure to KNOW is through other people telling us about it.

  Vets are so aggressive about this matter because the conflict is terrible.  We all expect our MMO's to change over time, little things here and there....some polish to things we already like.  No one expects a complete trashing of a game you enjoyed to be remade into a game that holds nearly no semblance to the thing you loved.  Its essentially a bait and switch.  I realize that means little to the player that hasn't endured it.  I don't often bring it up to them.  But it does set a standard for how the company behind it operates.  That standard is something I feel important for everyone to know.  At least if they know, then I don't feel like someone is robbing them.  At that point, they are just robbing themselves, if indeed any such "Robbing" were to occur.

  But you can't hate on people who strive to voice their view on SOE.  That information is important to new consumers, and its info you can't get anywhere else because of how tight lipped reviewers are anymore.  The Used Car Dealer example given above was very good.  As community, gamers have to look out for and protect one another.  Just like any other community.  We have to because the corporate end of this spectrum will NOT.  

  As always, its not that SWG may not be fun now....its that the guys running this show have NO qualms about completely destroying everything you may like about it eventually....for no other reason than the fact THEY feel they understand better than YOU what it is YOU want to play.  I, for one, don't even want to give it a chance.  I'll not be made a fool of twice.

TO saay:        That depends...which incarnation of the jedi quest are we talking about?  They retooled the pre-req for attaining jedi a time or two, because the previous "Guess how many beans in the jar" method annoyed people.  I actually preferred it (Since jedi was so strong then) to keep tons of them from showing up.

To Jenus:     Are we really having a flamewar here....I mean this stuff is legendary geekdom really.  We both know advertising had nothing to do with ANY MMO success.  The bottom line for every games' success is in gameplay.  I don't really want to play WoW myself, but I'm not so DAFT as to think its not the top tier Classic MMO on the market right now.  None of this particularly matters in this topic at any rate...because the poster you are attacking offered a perfectly fine answer to the OP, as many others have.  In fact, outside of his slight posting bias, his points are repeated in the other answers given.  This display you are giving is common for you though, as I've been watching this forum I've noticed a very severe posting history from you.  Its above what I would even consider fanboi-ism.  Your zeal in defending many of this games abhorrent issues makes me think you are a company account.  Seriously.  Even the fanboys here admit colossal failure when they see it. 

To be honest, this is probably the only forum I've seen where the die-hard fans can still admit a failing when they see it.  Anywhere else you get crucified for suggesting a game has any problem at all.

Now chunk the stupid Fanboy flamewars, they have no place here.  The OP asked a direct question, and we owe it to him to give direct answers.

Here is mine

1 WoW-esque.  If you like the system Blizzard uses for its classes, you should have no problem here.  Assuming you aren't and old vet player.  If so...well....give the trial a shot.  But don't expect much, most vets suffer major nostalgia on this topic.  Rightly so, I'm one of them.  But if you aren't an old vet you may find something you like for sure, so give it a shot.

2 The player base is a shell of what it was.  Other posters have told you what server is largest.

3 Already told, but I'll go ahead and parrot it.  No, they are balanced with everyone else now.  That makes me a mix of happy and sad....

4 Its better than it was, they demolished a ton of unused houses from the massive exodus that happened after NGE.  I'd love to see tatooine now, that place was a massive pile of player cities last time I played.  I rode straight for 30 minutes through city after city.  I imagine it to be much improved in that regard, but the choicest spots will still be taken by players that stuck with the game.

Originally posted by jaxscorpio34

Originally posted by Obee

 

Nobody is making a WoW knock off to attempt to duplicate EQ's success.  They are doing it because WoW is the 10,000 pound gorilla and they want a piece of the WoW playerbase.  If WoW and another game share a feature, and a new game comes along and has that feature too, it is because WoW hast that feature, not the other game.  Even SOE is trying to copy WoW with the changes they have made to EQ, EQ2, and SWG since WoW became a mega-hit.  Hell, all the praise SOE gets for making EQ2 a decent game is due to it being made more like WoW.

Blizzard took what worked from several existing MMOs and adapted the design to be more casual friendly.  They polished the package up and built it to run on low end systems.  That was the secret of Blizzard's success with WoW.  Unfortunately, most developers think they can siphon off WoW's subscribers by copying WoW's mechanics, but releasing their game unoptimized, riddled with bugs, and requiring top of the line hardware to run their mess of a game.

You have some valid points and I am not debating that newer games are not copying the "WoW model".  All I am saying is that Blizzard took some of it's basic ideas from the games that came before it, polished them up a bit and put together a new game.  If not for those earlier games, we might not even have a "WoW model" today.  That said, if it's ok for WoW to borrow ideas from other games then I fail to see how it suddenly becomes bad or evil when other games do the same thing.  In SWG's case, I simply wish they had done a better job at copying WoW instead of releasing the garbage they called the NGE.

I wish they had never bothered in the first place...and I have an intelligent reason why.  SWG stood to be the BEST combination of Sandbox and Classic MMO ever imagined.  They had the most perfect foundation for it, and it needed little more than some polish and additional content to make it work.  Sandbox MMOs tend to have poor subs due to the strangeness of its appeal, but THAT was before MMO's were even a thing to be considered when discussing a major market standard in gaming.

What COULD have happened was this:  WoW releases and gets a massive sub base.  SOE goes into overdrive optimizing the system and adding content while still LEAVING IN PLACE all of the wonderful customization tools already in place.  A simple refining (READ - picking up the pace) of combat and the whole game would have been perfect.  Once WoW gave life to the MMO market, it set up the pieces for other games to get noticed. 

See...here is the catch.  WoW is a purely Classic MMO.  All Classic MMO's give players burnout after the first year...give or take some months.  Once burnout happens people start looking at other games to see whats available.  Their subs would have actually probably doubled as a result of this.  But they chose instead to destroy everything about the game which made it unique and desirable...opting instead to try and make a frankenstein monster out of it by blending in WoW to the theme already in place.  It didn't work at all.

For that, I hate them.  I would still be playing if they hadn't destroyed my game.  I hate WoW, and wish to god I could go back to the old SWG.  I loath the fact I must now spend my days playing 5000 clones of yet another Classic MMO.

Originally posted by Blurr

You might actually try Hellgate London, it's fast, fun, and you kill lots of things over and over.

That said though, it's got a few problems (I don't know all the details).

Dungeon Siege hmmm.....I can honestly say I've never even given that game a look.  I'll see about it.  While I do....

Any other good choices?  It doesn't HAVE to be a pure hack n slash style MMO, I just want something a little more active than traditional ones for a moment.  I use hack n slash as, what I consider, the best parallel to make for it.  F2P is a plus.  In fact, its practically a requirement for the moment.  Thanks for those who have replied already, and thanks in advance to all those that reply in the future.  I really do appreciate the help, its getting on my nerves DLing these games to try them all.  So many start out well enough, and flop over dead in a day.  I rely on you guys for ideals to save me the HD space, lol!

  I've played my fair share of MMO's....more than I even care to think about.  I'm looking for something simple right now, perhaps with a "hack n slash" feel to it.  The satisfaction of killing MANY things would be great right now, while I wait for the ability to start playing either WoW or CoX again.

  Any suggestions?  I'm not too picky about graphics (as a matter of fact...my PC has an ancient Vid Card...Radeon 7500 if I'm not mistaken...and less CAN be more) and I really just want something fluid, fast, and fun. 

Originally posted by elvenangel

 

Originally posted by Kulthos

Originally posted by Mitara

OK this IS kind of confusing... when you look at the poll results, there is NO doubt. PvP 20%... when you look at the post, its more like 60%. If you look at the games that exists, none of them got the PvP right and most of all the absolutet majority thinks that PvP in Wow is downright boring.

My conclusion can only be that people find the idea of pvp inticing and hope that some future game will bring it in a more fun way, just not focus too much on it.

I think you are seeing sampling errors on display.  People who like PvP apparently spend more time on forums.  I am between MMO's right now, so I am doing research on new ones which gives me time to post.  My wife, who loves WoW battlegrounds, spends her time killing hordies and not positing anywhere.

You miss the point Kulthos.....Most people HATE absolutely HATE WoW pvp which is why they're here saying what they say and voting how they vote.   The idea you just pvp for gear and not something of substance like your realm or land or to protect your home is just boring...pvping for gear is a grind and boring *repeats herself*  

 

WoW lovers tend not to leave the WoW forums or the game to come here and argue with us very often. 

  I'm not a WoW lover, but I stand 100% behind their PvP.  It was the only reason I played that game as long as I did, and the only reason I've ever considered going back.  It was fast, fluid and tactical.  The experience rewarded you...and now rewards you based on how well you perform.  I find that to be very fun.  No other game, and I have played an insane amount, has even come close to that experience for me.  Not even the "PvP MMOS" that are out there.  They may have gotten certain things better...but they all suffer when I compare the fun of combat to WoW. 

  I'd love having more reasons to PvP.  I would love sieges and massive wars.  I'd love to fight to defend my land (which is one thing I sorely miss from old WoW...the world PvP made me smile everyday I played it).  But the fact for me is that the games which hope to offer this always fail to deliver on smooth and simple combat.  You heard me, SIMPLE.  Combat which is too complex takes away from the tactical nature of deciding what to do with you moves....you are far too involved in how to use them at all.

  There ya go, a wow pvp lover in here to discuss it with ya!  Also, 20% isn't too bad for a poll.  Most people really don't vote on those things, and your average forum junkie is a PvE player in general.  They like social encounters, obviously, so they seek them out in both their games and their life outside them.  PvP players are generally more competitive and less social.  They seek out more competition, less talk. 

  I'm just a freak.

Good summary.

Now for my take.

A company stands to earn billions yearly off just a 10 dollar sub.  IN the entertainment industry you do not often find a source which pays for itself inside the first 6 months.  The general model there is that you pay alot upfront, squeeze by for a year and then soak up pure profit from then on.

The fact is, with a 15 dollar sub a decent game will make back what it pays in almost immediately (hence why WoW was so quick with its massive content updates).  My feeling is that the competition in this market demands that price stay where it is, or go a hair lower.  Because if the game is not good enough to have earned back what it paid in on a 15 dollar sub...it CERTAINLY isn't worth paying 20 for either.

That brings us round to the point where we can all agree that anything over $15 is purely bleeding the consumer for no reason.  I'd rather just play WoW, they don't actively assume I'm an idiot.  Absolutely nothing in the development of a game could possibly cause such a massive raise...or even a raise in price at all.  The content updates an MMO gives does not cost anywhere NEAR what initial development does.  I have no desire to line their pocketbooks just for the sake of doing so.

I'm going to hate myself for saying this...but....

I agree.

The F2P model is one that I feel should be considered very strongly.  The real issue in that ideal is inside making such a model work so that it does not ever really force you to spend more than 15 a month ever...and such that doing so does not put you above anyone in a meaningful way.

I'm all for things like increased XP gains, and increased money drops, as a result of a cash shop.  Neither of these really detract from the game in any way but to give the buyers a little easier time playing.  If the game model is still very easy and fun WITHOUT the items, I see no reason the model should fail.  The problem alot of current F2P games run into is that they design the game to really hurt a player who has not purchased these things.  The XP to level requirements are usually SUPER high and some games even require a cash shop item to even guarantee you can log in like everyone else.  Those models are VERY poor, and are a detriment to gaming in any form.

But there are plenty of consumer friendly ways to approach the ideal.  IN game housing or in game fortresses could be a thing paid for, neither of which should ever reach above the cost of normal monthly subs.  They would add something nice to a game that a player might want to pay for, but not something which would give the player an edge numerically over someone else.  Costumes and fancy mounts would be another.  IN general, both cosmetic and time reducing items are very tame and would work well.

Flyff is a pretty good game to look at for this.  The vast majority of their Cash Shop is purely cosmetic.  The VERY few statistic items do little more than raise a stat by ONE.  Otherwise, its nothing but XP gain items and mild buff items which aren't required at all...and serve to simplify a night or so of gaming for a small price.

Now the problem with the model is that it has not yet been found to pay enough to give the company funding to develop the game as well as a pure sub model has.  But in the right hands, with the right mixture, I think someone could very well pull this off and change how we view these games as a whole.

"It has already lost large amounts of subscribers. They have a very high turn over rate MMo. Lots of people are constantly joining while lots of people are quitting. When will the hype of the game be over? I figure it will end when people realize the game isn't anything special."

I don't play WoW, for many reasons.

But this is probably the silliest thing I have ever heard. 

OF COURSE they lose a ton of players all the time.  All MMO players drift, it just happens.  Its called burnout, and when it happens we leave our game of choice for awhile.  When your player pool is over 100 times the size of any other game, then yes...you are going to have 100 times the drifters each month.  That is absolutely no indication of the game at all.

As far as what is special about the game....I can tell you easily.  They listen to the players.  They have done so since the game was in concept stage.  Anything that can make it easier, more involved, more exciting, more fun....they listen and consider the option.  Most MMO devs just assume they know it all, and never bend from their initial plan.  Blizzard has bent from its initial plan a few hundred times already to give the players what they want.

They day more companies start doing this, is the day WoW will lose subs.  As long as these tools keep thinking they have a clue, better so than us, there will NEVER be a better game.  I think that is so sad...because it forces us to keep playing a game we have long since burned out on simply because no one else cares enough to listen to us and make something new.  I've been without a solid MMO for over a year now because of this.

*sigh*  Guess I'll just have to go back to WoW.  I really would rather pull out my hair than see the barrens again.  But at least I can feel good about that company getting my money.  Even if I'm tired of the game, at least they did something to earn it.

Hype does do a number on a game from what I can tell.  A big part of that is inside how much is promised and how much is delivered.  Take the old console game Fable for example.  That game was hyped at being a massive. fluid, ever changing world that you grew up in.  Instead what you got was a 10 hour game in which the whole of the world was explored.  There was nothing fluid or changing about it at all.  Now as a game unto itself it was VERY good.  It felt like a failure to so many because it didn't even come close to what was promised for it.

In the MMO world, these promises matter even more...because monthly subs are involved.  We want to be more than just attached to the game, we want to be 100% a part of the joy of it.  Any failed promise or ignored plea becomes a staged war against the consumer who is feverishly demanding of what consumes his time.  What these MMO companies need to understand is that innovation HAS to be tempered by working foundations.  If something has proven fun, you don't leave out that model just to be different.  You add to the model, and make it your own.  That is EXACTLY why WoW has been such a strong game.  They didn't do anything new at all, they just took what was good from everything else and added something fresh to it.  They actually paid attention to what players had been saying over the years (even if you feel they don't now, you must admit they HAD to be paying attention when they made the game).

In the end, there are only two types of MMO's from now on.  Niche market, and global market.  If you wanna go global...you must be simple, fun, and vast.  PvP MMO's, raider MMO's, grinder MMO's....these are all niche ideals.  To strike gold you must have elements of all of them, and work it in such a way as to be easy to understand and quickly accessible.

My view is that this genre is dead.  Too many people will try to hard to either be just like WoW, or far too different.  These guys have no clue what it is that we enjoy...they are just trying to fine a buisness model to bleed us, the walking wallet. 

I cannot recommend SWG in any fashion.  The trouble with that game is that the niche element it had going for it has long been removed.

Essentially, they saw that games like WoW were doing superb and decided to destroy everything that made the game appealing and different to mimic what WoW had to offer.  The problem there is that WoW has far more content and better UI to complement that model.  You will find that game severely lacking.

EQ2 is going to be the best choice for you I think.  You may consider giving Vanguard a go, but I can assure you that EQ2 will have more content if you are a hardcore gamer.  Lineage 2 is a valid choice I think, but you may find the controls a little different that what you are used to and the grind is borderline legendary.  Try both of those games, and if they don't pan out just wait for WAR.  Don't get overly excited about AoC because the appeal of that game has been centered around the war and PvP strength its going to have, and you have stated that Raiding is one of the biggest things you enjoy.  That isn't to say they won't have such things....but I don't see them making that the biggest focus of the game at all. 

That is besides my natural worry over the lack of an open beta AND the lengthy NDA they have up.  They are hiding too much information and I worry that they are not going to test it well enough. 

You should also keep an eye on Aion.  That game may very well pan out to be the next big thing, and I feel that way because they aren't being overly promising about what they can accomplish.  In fact, they've so far been allowing the model and ideal of the game speak for itself. 

Best of luck

I've decided that from now on, anytime I find the word "grindfest" used in conjunction with a description of an MMO I will henceforth write the person off as mentally deficient.

How can any of you call ANY mmo a grindfest?  At this point, I thought I was pretty obvious that they ALL are.  Oh sure, perhaps they cloak the grind by altering what it is you grind FOR, but its there none the less.  IN WoW the level grind is pretty easy...but then you hit a brick wall of REPUTATION GRINDZORS at the end that quickly makes up for it.   Or tradeskill grinds...those are horrid.

So I really think that its prudent to ignore claims of this being a grindfest...especially since I hit level 15 in THIS game far quicker than I ever could in WoW.  Perhaps they just didn't understand core game mechanics?  Beyond 15 isn't any worse either...yes there IS a time when you really need to group a bit to see as fast xp gain as you did before.  This is so common in the genre that one should consider it a STAPLE at this point.

The real joy behind this whole thing is...the xp grind is insanely fun.  The whole time you are plotting out a course for your characters development, using new skills and seeing how they mesh with other class skills you can mix with it.  I've played maybe 4-5 days (NO more than 1-2 hours, if even, on any of them) and have 3 class leveled to 15 and all the others both open and level 11-13. 

Having to level each class separately is no big deal either (Again, its expected...you have to in all other MMO's, and they don't generally offer you the option of mixing class skills you've earned either) because as you pick up higher level abilities you can equip it essentially "overpowers" you low level classes when you go to level them.    You can, for instance, level Merc to 30 and pick up "Equip Spear" and the AoE and begin leveling Doctor using the very same skills you'd have had as a 30 Merc. 

Besides this, there are plenty of quests to supplement both your XP gain and your cash flow.  I haven't actually done any quests outside of the initial 4 you can get right as you enter Eversun.  So, obviously, you could level even faster than I have if you tried.  Couple this with the many group and guild events and challenges you can get involved in and you have PLENTY of breaks from the grinding tedium if you so choose to have it.  There are also several Cinematics you can get involved in. 

I see absolutely NOTHING in this game that makes it a grind at all.  I'd compare this grind to WoW...not "crappy asian mmo".

Yes, yes it is.

Hop on in and join us!  This game hasn't let me down yet, and trust me...after all I've played you start walking into these things expecting them to.

My main is Gish, look me up!~ I'm Merc with a splash of Doctor and Shaman.  For no real reason either, mind you...I just have been going on a "Try everything" spree lately.  I have to admit, though, that its nice having both a heal AND additional defense debuffs and DoT's to go along with my AoE-ing armored nightmare.

Attention to detail is a very important thing to have brought up, at least for me anyway.

I've played more MMO's than I care to even mention.  My friends and I are about as unbiased a group of individuals as you will ever find.  We are able to see and discuss flaws in things we love, and success in things we hate.  The amount of detail and attention to it are very much a large part of why I love this game.

Like gathering, lets discuss that.  Gathering can be done completely AFK, simply que up the process and it completes itself, pockets the goods, and restarts automatically.  This provides a rather nice way to generate income even from early levels when not playing the game at all.  The fact that they chose to make an aspect of the MMO genre which is mostly reviled actually something rather positive is great.

Multiclassing, as it is seen here, not only changes the way we look at alternate character...but redefines how we see our character as a whole.  Combined with pure statistical control (complete with a guideline given for each class as to which stats are ideal) opens up more freedom in character development than I have seen in a long time.  As a matter of fact...I haven't enjoyed this element in an MMO since before SWG was destroyed.

Quests are beyond plentiful, and there is a very powerful story-driven element to them that makes the process able to be enjoyed for its own sake, rather then JUST the reward itself.  Most quests even up the reward ante in some way for bringing back more than was asked.  I'll admit some of the quests are a migraine (One particular, from the mayor of Eversun, comes to mind. ) but they were in no way required to move ahead.

Within the first 15 levels I already found 3 instanced scenarios to complete, each with varying options for solo attempts or group efforts.  I also noticed a section in town for guild based objectives...though I digress I haven't gotten far enough along yet to test these out.

The community has proven to be both enjoyable and friendly.  I have spent some time already talking to random people and overall have found the experience to be the best of any game I've played.  Naturally, this matter is subject to change as the game grows.  I think though that the Cell-Shading, cartoony nature of the game will weed out a lot of the "L33T" crowd which tend to plauge the spirit of an MMO community.

Don't get me wrong, it does have faults.  The world is very linear so far...and with only one server in open beta so far the early level areas are pretty crowded with people over spawns.  The respawn rate is extremely high, so this has not yet caused me any trouble...there has always been somewhere to go that I could farm peacefully. 

Travel before flight is slow, though this is typical of an MMO.

There a places in the world where you can get stuck on objects.  There is an unstuck feature which will return you to wherever you entered the zone. 

<<  >>  MY game is bugged graphically so that my landscape textures don't show sometimes...and instead I get a layer of pure blue or orange instead of the ground.  But thats just me so far.

THe whole debate between C2M and WASD is silly.  Game Dev's should just do what the people who made Shaiya did and use BOTH.

IN fact, Shaiya uses both fluidly. 

All MMORPG's are grinders.

To be specific, no its not a grinder at all actually.  Between cinematics, plentiful quests, multi-classing, and colorful, creative locations this game has yet to feel like a grind to me personally.

Most F2P games feel like grinds because all they offer is...well...killing things for virtually no purpose.  No matter how fun such an act begins...it loses flavor fast.  A good MMO offers more depth than that, and this one is plenty chock full of the goods so far.

Naturally, as this IS an MMO, there is an element of grind to it.  Thats just the nature of the beast.  You kill things, alot.  There is a healthy supply of ways to break the tedium so far though...and I enjoy the "grind" anyway because the enemies are just plain interesting.  But don't take my word, its free after all.  Try it yourself, if you like the style anyway.  Gotta be able to enjoy the art if you want to enjoy the game.