MMORPG Addicts Needed

Community General Discussion
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I’d love to hear your opinions on the more popular MMORPGs that are currently playable.

Almost certain to be missing some interesting games here, so please jump in with ones I’ve missed. Games I am currently interested in:

  • World of Warcraft (Should Classic be a separate entry?)
  • Final Fantasy 14
  • New World
  • Black Desert Online
  • Elder Scrolls Online
  • Everquest
  • Everquest 2
  • Runescape
  • Old School Runescape (this should DEFINITELY be its own entry)
  • Albion Online
  • Guild Wars 2
  • Lost Ark
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic
  • Star Trek Online
  • Lord of the Rings Online

Let’s use World of Warcraft as our standard and normalize our data to that. (i.e. the different aspects of a particular MMORPG rated as better or worse than WoW.)

What aspects should we be interested in discussing? I’m open to things I’ve missed, but so far looking at (in no particular order):

  • Population. How high is it, and is it important for this particular game?
  • Leveling experience. How long does it take and how fun is it?
  • PvP. Does it have PvP? What is it like?
  • End-game. I’m interested in both group-based end-game content and solo opportunities.
  • Price model. Free? How bad are the P2W aspects?
  • Content. This is a broad topic, but I’m thinking about how many different activities are there to engage in? Professions? Housing?
  • Art-style. How good does it look? Do you enjoy its particular aesthetic?
  • Combat Style - Is it just button mashing, or is there some other nuance?
  • Hardware requirements - Some games can run on very little, others need a decent machine
  • Community. How do other players behave? Is toxicity common, or is it a rare occurrence? Are more experienced players willing to help a newbie out?
  • New player experience . Is a second monitor needed to learn how to play and manage the game systems? Are there adequate tutorials and explanations present in game?
  • Uniqueness. What makes a particular game stand-out from the others?
  • Miscellaneous and other opinions that are important to know about a particular game.

Also, while thinking about these things, what does WoW get right and what does it get wrong?

Finally, what do YOU look for in an MMORPG?

All opinions are appreciated!

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Yes Classic should be a separate entry.

WoW Retail- 9.2.5 is pretty decent, still waiting for Dragonflight so mostly just doing collection stuff.

WoW TBC- Right now burnt out and taking a break from it until we are close to WotLK classic.

Amazing game, also go back for every patch, like right now with 6.1.5 and Hildibrand etc. And when I feel like I need to detox myself from WoW’s toxicity and just mellow out.

It sucks right now, the removal of modable gear just sucks and modable gear is only at higher difficulties. Its a mess of a game right now and I DO NOT recommend it unless you want to have fun with the class stories which are good. The only class story I don’t recommend is Sage, it’s quite dull imo.

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Probably worth adding art style to your list. I love the Warcraft and WoW art styles, which have held up very well over the years, imo. Conversely, I can’t stand FF14’s style. It’s one of the reasons I don’t play it.

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Great catch, editing it in now. Definitely an important aspect to consider.

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Unless you have 25 hours a day to play and really enjoy losing all your progress from 1 mistake

Don’t play black desert online

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I agree.

I would also add P99 as a Classic EQ version. ITs not as old school as some of the other early EQ remakes but it has 2 servers, is F2P (no cash shop or charges - just F2P) and has about 800 online per server each night. It may sound low, but thats pretty full for an old school style EQ server since everything isnt hidden in instances

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This is very true. I still play EQ occasionally. It almost needs 3 catagories. Retail, P99, and TLPs. Those are 3 very different experiences!

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Can only speak to FFXIV and ESO, as I don’t have enough hours in any other to truly get a good opinion formed about them.

FFXIV has a lot of pretty set dressing, but once the MSQ is consumed you begin to realize how seasonal of a game it is. I’ll sub for a couple months out of the year to clear the raid tier, do the 1hr worth of patch content (every 4 months), and then go play something else. I don’t feel like I have the reusable content like I have in WoW to keep me subbed.

I’ll be real, I hate how FFXIV looks. I play with retexture mods and g-shade. I have since HW. The game is so deprived of saturation, full of jpeg’d textures, and lighting glitches that it can be hard to look at for me. Not to mention it lacks a cohesive world theme to keep me immersed.

Housing is actually the worst I’ve ever seen 0/10.

Lots of people playing, but you have to be on Aether to actually get benefits from a population. Most of the people on 14 play it as a social game, and getting statics together on Primal has been a real pain in the rear.

ESO’s combat is probably the most tragic thing I have ever seen. Build diversity is so out of this world, but the actual controls mean that you will be using the same, similar, build as everyone else. The servers are too volatile and unresponsive to flex and burst with things outside the box. Something I’m hoping to see in DF is a similarly flexible loadout feeling.

Population is great, but similarly to FFXIV hard to pull groups for endgame. I’d say it’s even worse - with no Group Finder and everyone doing hard content being able to fit in one Discord. There are plenty of dedicated crafters, though. Backbone of society.

Questing in ESO is superior to both WoW and FFXIV, and I cannot stress enough that if you’re a solo player who likes to immerse in a world PLAY ESO. You will not regret it, as where ESO fails in nearly every other aspect, it’s an amazing world to adventure through.

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  • Combat Style - Is it just button mashing, or is there some other nuance? For example in ESO, you have to weave a light or heavy attack in between every ability, and there’s bar swapping, so a rotation might look like 1 > left click > 2 > bar swap > left click > 2 > bar swap. I hated it because of how much micromanagement I felt was needed in addition to all the normal combat things and it’s why I stopped playing. I loved almost every other aspect of the game.
  • Hardware requirements - Some games can run on very little, others need a decent machine
  • Community - How do other players behave? Is toxicity common, or is it a rare occurrence? Are more experienced players willing to help a newbie out?
  • New player experience - Is a second monitor needed to learn how to play and manage the game systems? (Looking at you, Warframe) Are there adequate tutorials and explanations present in game?

This, so much.

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i’ve tried and thoroughly enjoyed all.

yes they are different games, wotlk being one of its best iterations.

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Excellent suggestions. Editing them in now!

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Great review.

My only comment is that ESO doesnt have a huge player population compared to FF14/WoW, but by removing factions and combining all servers they have created a system that makes the game always feel full and active

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I probably should clarify as well that while it’s not as big as WoW or 14 in terms of players, everyone is far more active. It feels more alive to be in Vivec with 20 people talking up a storm than sitting in Limsa at peak hours with 40 people standing in silence.

Not to mention they’re just friendlier, most of the time.

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For pvp, WoW is the only real option for me.

For pve, ff14, ESO are great alternatives.

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I stick around WoW because I like lower level PVP on retail still. Classic is fun to a point. But, if I’m honest, the business practices of Blizz with D:Immortal legit has me considering just cutting ties with this company. It’s mostly nostalgia and some remaining in game friends at this point.

XIV I play quite a bit. I love the MSQ, the higher end raiding is a lot of fun and I’m addicted to Crystalline Conflict. That said, as good as CC is, I still prefer WoW BGs.

I actually still play Ragnarok Online a bit. 100% because of nostalgia, but its a fun little grind game at times. Feels more like a phone game now, to be honest, though.

I tried Lost Ark and SWtOR and neither really did much for me. Not saying they’re bad games just not for me.

New World …ooofffff. Definition of a mile wide and an inch deep. Too bad, because it had some serious potential.

Path of Exile is a lot of fun. I like starting the new seasons and seeing what weird little tweaks the devs make to the game. Never spent a dime in game and almost feel bad about that, lol. This is a really fun Diablo clone with incredible update schedules.

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Would you consider PoE an MMORPG? I guess I always thought it was more like Diablo, but I’m not overly familiar with it.

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I kind of do, but 10000% biased on the reasons.

I ended up jumping in with some folks from the Preach community at the start of a season a while back and it probably just FEELS like an MMO to me because of that.

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SO I dont play Retail EQ, but I do like TLPs and P99.

I also really liked setting up my own EQEMU server so my son and I could play by ourselves. Daybreak (or whatever they are called now) doesnt have a problem and you can get the sw from github.

I also wanted to try a SWGEMU but I came back to WoW with my son and am having a blast in TBC Classic and running Retail trying to get the legendaries I missed while leveling my old toons

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Oh, I didn’t realize I could set up my own EQ server. Well, I know what I’m trying out this weekend! Thanks!

SW:G is easily one of my all-time favorite MMO experiences. I absolutely LOVED that game until the $#@%$#! combat upgrade ruined everything. I’d love to set up a pre-CU SWGEMU!

Looks like I have a lot of research to get to.

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i mainly play eso and swtor because they have a better end game for casuals and they have their hard content as well.

wow is the last mmo i would ever do pve in i just llike bgs in wow.

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