Which is the best Massively Multiplayer Online Game out today?

korn469 · July 2, 2003, 15:31

I was wondering which is the best MMO out today. What features give it that distinction? What are some of the things that really give the game a good sense of community? What are some of the features that ruins the fun in these games? All feedback is welcome

General Ludd · July 2, 2003, 16:26

Shadowbane, for the open PvP, empire buildng, ect...

Still, not that great a game... The list of things wrong with it is too long to say.

thinkingamer · July 2, 2003, 20:58

Heh, actually the question of this thread should be "How many among us, the TBS gamers does actually pay and play MMORPGS? and if you do, then which one do u play?"

DinoDoc · July 2, 2003, 21:08

Utopia.

General Ludd · July 2, 2003, 21:48

Quote:

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Utopia.

Yeah, it's almost as fun as playing with your calculator... er, no... wait. That's what it is.

Grumbold · July 3, 2003, 07:15

There is no "best" MMORPG. Everyone wants something different out of it to keep their interest flowing and several key concepts are mutually exclusive.

- Balance: Assuming nobody makes an obviously dumb choice, all players should be equally capable in a situation, especially but not exclusively in PvP.

- Skill: The players who take time to learn and understand the game best and apply that with a lot of hard work should reap the wards by being capable of feats impossible to lesser players.

- PvP: There is a sizeable audience who would prefer no PvP ever unless its under their own tems i.e. stepping into an arena. There are others who are all for no holds barred PvP. There are some who want no holds barred PvP but insist they should be able to play on the main servers with people who don't like that instead of being given their own server to go kill and be killed on.

Quests: Quests should be easy/hard/accessible to all or only something a team of thirty experts working together can achieve.

Dynamic content vs static content: Do you want to be able to do the quest everyone else is raving about, not be told that Squigglybum has saved the world and been given the l33tsword as a reward, be faster next time?

Solo content vs group dynamic: Must a MMORPG force you to team up with players of complimentary skill, personality and character types to achieve anything fun, or should you be able to survive as a loner?

Crafting: Should crafting skills be available, only possible if you are a superb fighter to get the magical components and make items of lesser, equal or better quality than the monsters can drop?

Chat: Should you be able to talk to everyone in the world, only people within 20 feet or a strange blend of the two?

Graphics: Is it important that the game looks amazing and can't be run on anything smaller than the latest Ninja PC with Uber card without framerate issues?

Downtime: Is it a better game if you have to sit on your butt waiting a lot between the actions or has frenetic gameplay that can sometimes be too fast to complete, leading to a feeling of anticlimax?

The list is huge and I'm sure I'm missing many important ones. None of the above MMORPG's have achieved the balance I'm looking for, and I've played most of them and read up heavily on the rest.

Vince278 · July 6, 2003, 01:11

None of them. I've played better PBMs in every case. Too many cheaters and wanton player killers. The integrity of MMORPGs to me are in question.

Odin · July 6, 2003, 18:11

Ultima Online.

I hate the PK Gangs too, Vince; but if they kill you, anyone can kill them with no penalty in UO.

Bounty-hunting anyone?

ColdWizard · July 6, 2003, 23:29

TDZK

Q Classic · July 6, 2003, 23:51

i'm clearly showing my bias here, but i'd have to say lineage: the blood pledge.

it's dated now, so i don't play it much, but i'm kinda looking forward to lineage 2.

i did enjoy shattered galaxy's trial, but i didn't want to fork over any more cash to an mmorpg. i don't think they're good for me.

Dis · July 7, 2003, 04:22

well I haven't played or even seen many. I have seen my brother play Everquest. That didn't look that interesting.

Just today I saw Eve. And I must say that is the best one I've seen so far. I'm real tempted to play it. The only thing holding me back is I usually can't find enough time to play computer games. I usually like to play a little bit at a time, but that is annoying when you have to pay a monthly fee.

But I may try to play the first free month constantly and then cancel

. That way I still get some fun gameplay without the extra cost.

The level of complexity in Eve is amazing. But that may be it's flaw. Many newbies just start out doing mining- which can be boring. So they get bored with the game and say it sucks. The only problem I see with this game is lack of marketing (and a good game title), and hence lack of a large number of online players.

The creators originally wanted there to be massive coroporations competing for areas of space and having massive wars. There are corporations in the game, I'm not sure if there have been any massive wars yet.

Space05us · July 7, 2003, 10:01

speaking of uo, anyone one know where I can get my grubby hands on it? Ive been trying to find a copy for the longest time. I had downloaded it from a website a long time ago (trust me I tried for months to buy it) but I forget what the website was. Im really jonesing to play it.
I dont care if its free or if I have to pay, I need it, its my drug

Grumbold · July 7, 2003, 10:07

The difficulty with EVE is that they're making everything harder to stop the best players outstripping the content. That is leaving the newbies with little to do except mine cheap ore and shoot cheap AI pirates. Ok if they join a big corp they get to do it a little faster because the corp can supply haulers and some better weapons, but its still tedious. Actually fighting the worthwhile AI pirates or the player PK's requires the best in-game equipment and just as importantly months of skill training.

At the beginning of the game relatively new players could pop these pirates and actually have an active career as a pirate killer that is as lucrative as rock humping. Too much money got pumped into the system so rock humping has been cut back and pirate hunting even more so. The corp I joined is beginning to break up and disperse as a result. Looks like its becoming a game for very dedicated teams of players only .