Online Games of the MMOG variety

[droopydrew19]

A few years ago I played Everquest and got bored of it and never really got on the WOW wave but the other day I was in EB games and noticed "The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar"

Reviews of it seem ok but I was wondering if anyone here has played it and what they think of it.

Alternately, I was wondering if anyone has a recommendation of a MMOG to play during our long cold crappy winter.

[metal_geek]

Dark age of Camelot was pretty fun.. Older now, but still fun..
________
Essential Vaaapp

[llama64]

Don't know much about Middle Earth except that it is apparently pretty vanilla and bland. To me, the Tolkien universe does not lend itself well to a MMOG, since everyone playing would want to be in the fellowship battling Sauron.

Everquest2 is pretty good, but I havn't played it in over a year and half. Though I do hear that their development team is very responsive to the player base.

If you want a light and easy game to play around in, World of Warcraft is the best one out there. The issues with it only really come out at the top end game where less then 10% of the total player base well ever see the top instances. But the trip up to the top has yet to be matched by any other game.

[Thor]

LoTR online is simply awful. World of Warcraft is king and it can cater to both casual and hardcore people, although hardcore do get to see more end game content there is still tons to do in the game to keep you busy on cold/quiet nights.

[Flaming Choy]

i played guild wars from time to time back in the day. Good thing about it is it's free to play (ie no monthly fee), but from what i've read, nowhere near the depth of WOW

[arsenal]

DAoC -- I played that after I got bored with EQ. Didn't feel the same, and I couldn't really get into it.
WoW -- Played the beta, was fun, but the whole camping, grinding stuff resurfaced even with the mini quests, so I got bored of it, and never bought the release.

I have heard that AD&D Stormreach is very good. That may be one that could probably get me back into MMORPG's. They instance dungeons like they do in WoW, but they set the diffuclty to the number of players in your party. So essentially, if you can't find a group, you can still go to dungeons, and play solo. Plus, i grew up with AD&D and love that "universe" so I may have to try it out.

[PowerPlayoffs06]

Lord of the Rings is like World of Warcraft in most respects, but a little more bland.

World of Warcraft was cool at release, but now it's friggin' ######ed. Blizzard doesn't even try anymore, they just steal ideas from other gaming companies and try to edge them out while ignoring their player base and giving them nothing but mindless grind after mindless grind. Don't be fooled. WoW is NOT casual friendly.

Dark Age of Camelot was fun in its prime, but it's fallen by the wayside in both support and in player base. Mythic is now putting most of their effort into Warhammer Online, which will be the next big thing and the only game that could give WoW a run for it's money in top spot as King of MMOs.

If you're just looking for something to dink around on without putting in any real effort or time (ala hardcore playing) then try Vanguard. It's new enough that there'll still be lots of low level players. Tabula Rasa, although destined to not really take off, is another alternative if a sci-fi genre MMO catches your fancy.

If you're looking for something to play long term and eventually want an established character, my advice is to just wait for Warhammer to be released, hopefully in Febuary or March. Doesn't really help in giving you anything to do over the winter, but it'll be the new fad when it comes out.

[BlAcKNoVa]

Lineage II! I've mentioned it a couple times here. Under-rated game IMO. It's an older game, it released in spring of 2004 I believe (I've been playing since the summer of '04), but it still has some of the best graphics around the MMO circuit. It's always getting updated through it's free expansions, which btw, the 7th expansion is going to be released here in North America later in the year.

I haven't played any other MMO's other then FFXI for a couple weeks, so I can't really go anbd compare L2 to any others on the market. What I can say though, is it's a pretty wide open game. The map is getting quite large, with plenty of areas and towns, although some people would say a huge map is a bad thing: big map, not enough people to fill it etc. Me? I've always been the more is better type so it's all good.

It's an open PvP game, so the only safe zones are towns. If a lvl 80 wants to come to your noobie area and kill your lvl 7 character w/o a reason, it's perfectly within the rules of the game, and you can't do a damn thing about it. Don't be fooled though, that sort of thing is quite rare nowadays as the starter towns are mostly vacated of actually people. The games been out for awhile, so most of everyone has moved on. That's not to say that you won't see people of equal levels, because there are people constantly re-rolling, and the new player joining the game.

What about the population of the servers you ask? There is 10 servers (2 are located in europe). 2 or 3 are "light", another couple are "normal", and the remaining servers are "heavy". I think you understand what I'm trying to say here.

Lot's of items, armour and weapons in the game, I just wish there was a bit more customization when you first create a character.

The main focus in L2 is the castle sieges between rival alliances, which occur every 2 weeks. Pretty fun if you ever get the chance to participate in one. Coming in the new expansion are fortresses. They're mini-castles I guess is what you can call them, and they're siegable 24 hrs a day.

I'll mention the biggest problem in L2 though: bots. There are a lot of them, and they especially come out in force during certain events. NCSoft seems like they're trying to rid the servers of the problem, but it just doesn't seem to be enough. You'll notice them quite a lot in the early stages of the game.

Other then that one glaring problem, it's really a great game. I haven't played for a couple months, but I'll probably reactivate my account(s) when the new expansion comes out.

Here's a couple vids if you're still interested:

Random fan made Gameplay movie. Pretty well done.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LLiTxP-aqY8

And this next one is the new CG movie of the expansion. A new race is actually being introduced with it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wva0-lW-QIA

Someone else mentioned Warhammer. That seems like a popular choice for some of the people I know when they mention other possible MMO's they'd like to play in the future.

[Dan02]

LOTRO is a awesome game... for the first month...

but the problem is it is extremely shallow, everyone i know reached maxed level max equip etc in about a month then disappeared as there is nothing really to do in the game. The only upside is they do update the game adding new stuff frequently.

[jolinar of malkshor]

They should make an MMOG within the stargate universe. There would be endless oppertunity for expansion.

[BlAcKNoVa]

There is actually. It's called Stargate Worlds. Not much is known about it right now though. Due out in 2008 sometime. I'm a huge fan of the Stargate universe, so I've been following this game for a while now.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6167289.html

[Resolute 14]

I bought WoW the day it came out, and am still going strong.

70 Druid, 60 Pally, 55 Warlock, 49 Mage, 44 Shaman, and a pile below 20.

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by BlAcKNoVa

There is actually. It's called Stargate Worlds. Not much is known about it right now though. Due out in 2008 sometime. I'm a huge fan of the Stargate universe, so I've been following this game for a while now.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6167289.html

Hopefully they make it as popular as wow so that it is around for a while. I will try out.

[Finner]

I have definitely been following Stargate Worlds as well.

There is also Star Trek Online coming out in the next year or two. It is sounding pretty awesome. Ship combat AND ground.

[psicodude]

I have been playing EQ2 since launch, and it's 100 times better now than at launch. Still...the same old formula and it's definetly geared towards grouping. Oh, and the famous SOE timesinks are in full effect.

[Qwerty]

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/home/index.php

I believe this is going to be the end of WoW. Take a look at some Youtube videos. It looks like WoW with way more PVP. It is made by the same people who have created DAoC.

I have been following this for about 6 months now, bad news is...

Due out 1st Quarter 2008... Pushed back from 4th Quarter 2007 already. I believe it looks unreal though, Maybe I can be one of the lucky 432,050 beta applicants to get picked.

Stay away from Vanguard, its not a completed game. It sucks.

LOTRO I have heard is a one player game with no end game turned into a multiplayer game. Never tried it.

Sadly, even with how easy it is. WoW is probably still the best option out there.

Also check out Age of Conan - http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/home/index.php If you want a more realistic game.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by PowerPlayoffs06

If you're just looking for something to dink around on without putting in any real effort or time (ala hardcore playing) then try Vanguard. It's new enough that there'll still be lots of low level players.

DO NOT waste your money on VG. Just a brutal game all around.

It tried to do too much with too little and ended up doing nothing.

[gallione11]

I did Final Fantasy XI for about a year and a half and it's hella addicting. About the only majorly bad thing about it, is once past level 10, you MUST party to advance. It can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours to get a party, which can be frustrating at times, especially if you play at off-peak hours. I loved that you could be any job with one character though. Just gotta stop by your "moghouse" and you can change jobs (providing you have them unlocked).

I ended up quitting, though, because it's a major time sink, and I don't really have the time to play that much anymore. On top of which, grouping requires your full attention while doing so, so the significant other can get a little POed when you ignore her.

The one that I'm playing now , I've been a part of for 13 years. It's very very old school -- all text based. It's Gemstone IV. You can do most things by yourself, so it's much easier to play in spurts. The annoying thing is however, you kill things to get your mind "full" and then must head back to town to absorb it at a good rate (about 20 minutes). Advancement is very slow too. My highest is level 63 and has about 3.75 million experience. About the quickest you can gain experience is 1.7k per hour, so you can do the math to figure out how long it takes. They did add a bonus though, for the first six hours of each week, your first three hours, your experience is tripled, and the next three it's doubled. So, potentially, you can gain about 25k experience in the first six hours of every week, which makes it much more tolerable.

If only I could focus on one character long enough to get them somewhere. (63 Sorcerer, 48 Rogue, 40 Cleric, 26 Warrior, 20 Wizard, 21 Empath)... Yeah.

http://www.play.net/gs4 if you're interested. Anyone (which I'm doubting) who plays here?

[FlamesPuck12]

Have you tried Silkroad Online? Its a free MMORPG game, I liked it awhile ago.
They came out with a brand new Europe Patch

http://www.silkroadonline.net/