UGh...and Double UGH!
Thanks to Tipa, "The bearer of bad tidings" (that is an achievement badge I believe in World of Warcraft), it seems my moratorium ending MMO has tanked until January.
This is not to say that I could be one of the lucky few who get in Closed Beta scheduled to start next week...but I will not hold my breath.
So, the time has come to make sure I choose correctly for my next MMO schedule. I will go through a list of the MMO's I have an interest in, debate the pro's and con's for me, and hopefully you guys will really pipe in with some opinion....
My first choices are recent purchases, and were made for specific reasons.
Dungeons and Dragons Online - Thanks to the DX10 update, new tutorial area and hirelings (upcoming), I decided to swing for the box, which I bought for 5 bucks.
The reason I have held off though is due to hirelings not being fully implemented.
Should I at least get in, make my character and start the tutorial area to get a feel for the new update? Or wait to make sure I get to trial the hirelings?
I have not read a release date yet on these. Plus, the 30 days has to really count, so if I miss something due to taking it on too early, then I will only have myself to blame.
The main reasons I bought the game is I have sort of liked each time I played. I have had issues with animations (a trademark Turbine issue...30FPS animations in a 60FPS world is how I describe their jerky movements), but visually I like the game better than LOTRO, and has a more action style feel.
But, when I read about hirelings, I was hooked.
I feel I need to give it longer than a 7 day trial.
Tabula Rasa - This of course was purchased due to one reason...96 cents....duh.
I have given this one 30 days, but it was the end of beta.
I entered Closed Beta about two weeks before the end. I rather enjoyed myself at that time.
Then Open Beta came and they made changes to how it worked. Balance was thrown off, performance suffered, and it became...non-fun!
But, the game has had time to mature. As well, I read of a change to the game to make it FPS viewable, and that Earth was being added to the mix. I liked the idea of going back to Earth in the story.
My main cons are...Sci-Fi and....Sci-Fi. I have yet to find any Sci-Fi game to really keep me...short of an Action game or FPS (Gears of War, Halo, etc..).
But, Tabula was fun with the LOGOS system, and made it feel slightly fantasy based. The alien drop ship spawns were cool, and weapon upgrades were neat.
Visually the game is nice to look at. Performance is good also since launch (went back once for a trial). I never tried the crafting (well, a little, but it sucked), so I am up in the air.
Do I wait for Earth and FPS mode first? Or take the plunge....
Everquest 2 - Ah, good ole EQ2. I really enjoyed myself for 8 months. This game is also the only game that I played to a higher level than most.. (I think I left at level 54...have to double check).
But, things started to go awry.
The performance was really conducive to not having fun (poor shoddy gameplay on high end equipment was not cool). The constant travel to various zones with long load screens was blah.
The world felt non-cohesive (one zone would look awesome, then the next would suck).
Luckily I really enjoyed the SOGA models. Combat was actually fun. And now with the changes to performance (Dual Core support), this one could work.
The XP raise for leveling I have heard is a boon, and this could possibly make the game go by quicker. This was another argument that the drag on levels and questing just made it go slow.
Of course, I will solo a lot, maybe join some PuG's, but I just want a game that will be fun no matter how I play.
Will EQ2 keep me occupied again?
Guild Wars - Going back is always an option here thanks to the no cost start up fee, and no cost monthly...
I still have a ton of content to complete, and recently a new patch added ways to track achievements for other missions in the game.
But, I do not want to burn out on an MMO immediately, and Guild Wars was played extensively a while back. It is still fresh, and I am unsure if I want to start back up just yet.
Either an older game (EQ2 has been almost a year) or a NEW game would be better suited..
Yet, GW ALWAYS satisfies...
__________________________
These are my choices for now. Nothing else really interests me at this point.
LOTRO will never touch my hard drive again, WAR was just not any fun, Vanguard....ah, if I need to be put to sleep maybe...and a slew of many others also (WoW is also a NEVER thanks to their idiocy. Trying to charge me for game time I never played is NOT cool.)
Any input here? Fire away...
Cheers
11 comments:
I finally get a title and it's "bearer of bad tidings"?
I prefer "Harbinger of Doom", thanks.
DooM!
Tag...you're it!
I find when I have tried to restart EQ2, it was overwhelming a bit. There is so much there, and it seems like it would take a while to get back in the swing of it all -- something which has prevented me from doing that, really.
You sound enthusiastic about the changes to DDO. Since you have the game, maybe that would be a good try for at least the 30 days, to see if it pans out for you. If it doesn't there's always GW to fall back on, for free, until Spellborn is released in North America.
Another option would be to go for the Euro version of Spellborn. Most Euro servers will still have English as the main language due to the fact that it's the one that most of them understand better than the other European languages.
Have discussed the Euro version, but IP block has already been noted, and I am not a fan of proxy work (and how well it does work until that gets blocked...etc..)
No, you may be right about DDO.
Tabula Rasa I really want Earth and FPS mode enabled first...
Will see.
Thanks for the input.
I agree with Brendan on EQ2, it is a game that is not so easy to pick up again after being away for a while due to the amount and complexity of game mechanics and features.
One of my problems with EQ2 was also that I was much lower than the general population when I got back in there and I mostly found XP grinding or farming teams. If there were something else it was generally rushed through by the team and I wondered 'what did we just do and why, there was no time to read the story?'
I played Tabula Rasa for about 9 months (including some beta time) and I really liked many of the things in the game. But they also had some really frustrating misfeatures.
And yes, the first and second attempt at crafting sucked :) I think they have gone live with the 3rd attempt by now, it may be better.
DDO is a game I really liked on paper, but was only so-and-so when I played it. Maybe module 8 will make it nicer. It could certainly be well worth trying.
Guild Wars, I am a bit amazed at all the things and options to play there, much more than I expected initially. But you will always have that available, so you can certainly try something else and fall back to GW if needed.
As for Spellborn, they did not say that they would IP block players, that was only some assumptions and guesses by some people. They only said that it was likely to not allow UK players to join servers which are not Acclaim servers.
That could still mean that they would just have different serial keys if you pay for the game.
openedge,
It seems to me that you live your life like a noob in the wind. Never knowing who to turn to when the release date gets pushed back again...
Wahhh...I am noob, hear me WAHHHH!!!
Tell me about it. I am kinda ticked off at MMO's, so it is hard to put my finger on where I need to go.
Spellborn was my ticket back in...stupid Acclaim!
I have learned how to play minus the grind though, and I hope to get that when I go back to an MMO..
Just gotta decide on which one..
Ideas?
Learned to play without the grind? EQ2 can be the grindiest game if you let it be, since it has so many advancement tracks. But it also has the most content to see if you want to ignore the grind. It's kind of the play as you want to play game I think, which is why I always seem to come back to it.
EQ2 actually burned me off very quickly due to the problem adingworld said: all the population was so much higher and honestly speaking, the quests rarely composed any continuity which would have incited that 'I wanna see THAT' feeling that I get pretty often in WoW (yea, I read the quest descriptions). I suppose a large part of my 'boring out' was due to the fact that EQ2 requires a lot more time than WoW for example, in a sense of feeling that you are advancing in any way. Loved the crafting, player housing and guild system, but if there is no-one to share that enthusiasm, why bother?
Copra
I'd go back to EQ2, but I'm afraid my Gigglegibber gambling addiction will grab a hold of me again. :)
Jason (resident drunken idiot of Channel Massive)
I hadnt known there was a new expansion for EQ2. I'd really rather not go back there though.
Hopefully my AION fanboyism will pay off and that game will rock. It's still going very strong in the Korean Open Beta.
Aion Competing with WoW In Korea.
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