I played WoW a bit after its initial release through the first couple xpacs. Getting the MMO itch again, but I know the WoW I grew up with doesn’t really exist anymore, so now I’m pretty out of touch.
For those of you playing / recently played an MMO, which one? How’s the community? How’s the lore? Gameplay in pve/pvp/rvr?
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FFXIV
I don’t PVP so I can’t speak to that but the lore and PVE is solid. Gameplay is very classic MMO. The releases continue to be ranked and reviewed higher with each one that comes out. Players are strongly encouraged to help new players (sprouts) via the mentoring program. Community has been so good, very helpful, never seen anyone rage or get angry at a new person, or anyone for that matter. Very LGBTQ+ friendly. TONS of fun stuff to do on the side between chapters like glamour or housing for folks that want a chill experience or you can do savage raids or hunts for the more hardcore game play focused players. Me and a friend love to just run around to all the apartments and houses to check out everyone’s place from time to time. Some are really amazing. I’ll throw mine and my buddy’s apartment in that ring we put a lot of work in and did some really cool tricks to make the space feel bigger and more unique. Some people turn their houses into cafes or dance clubs, some require RPing when you visit some don’t. They are pretty fun to go to. From time to time they’ll have giveaways for gill or items at the parties.
BONUS: It’s totally free up to level 70 so you have plenty of time to figure out if the game is for you.
I’m not playing right now, taking a quick break but I’m in the NA server Sargatanas. The name is Obi-Bun Kenobi, I think I have the address to my place in my Adventurer Plate. I leave the apartment unlocked so people can use it for g-posing or just to have a nice place to hang. Come check it out sometime!
XIV is the WoW that respects your time.
the pvp is pretty fun but suffers from not being a primary focus of the devs or the community and lacking basic things like a duo queue Balance and skills is entirely decoupled from pve which means there’s virtually no cross-value to doing both pvp and pve aside from unique cosmetics
This fucked up pay to win one called “Life”. Shit is hard as hell and I don’t think the devs even care about balance.
Oh my god don’t even get me started on this game.
Get this, you know how over time you get fatigue points and can only get rid of them by eating food items you’ve previously gathered? Well, when doing this one day last week my character nearly fucking died because of some race condition glitch where mid-swallow they tried to breathe for some unknown reason and because the devs, in their infinite fucking wisdom, decided that while there are two completely separate and incompatible systems for food and air, they must accessed via the same hole, but clearly not at the same time!
The mind boggles, I hope someone was fired for that blunder.
I’m sorry but this is actually pretty fucking funny!
Git gud noob
FFXIV is a fantastic game, with a fantastic free trial that lets you play the entire base game for free (and i think they recently expanded that to the first expansion too), and its beautiful as hell, has a fantastic story, and doesnt require a super computer to run.
GW2 for the past 11 years, except for a stretch where I played ESO for a few months.
Community’s mostly great. Cooperation between players is strongly fostered by the game’s design (no kill or resource stealing, no competing for drops, etc), so players tend to get along in almost every PvE situation.
Lore is good, but not nearly as expanded upon as Warcraft’s.
Gameplay is what makes it IMO. Skill effects and some gear skins can be a bit obnoxious, especially when you’re in large groups for open world and World vs World, but it’s still enjoyable. Don’t play normal PvP, so can’t comment on that.
The ones I’ve been playing on and off over the past few years are Guild Wars 2 and Lord of the Rings Online.
GW2 is a really nice game to just pick up and play without needing huge time investments. It has a fun gameplay loop and well designed zones to explore. Haven’t gotten around to playing the new expansion yet, but I hear it’s pretty good.
LOTRO is great for that traditional MMO experience. The community is very friendly and surprisingly active. It has a nice atmosphere. They are also frequently giving away the expansion packs, so you get a lot of content for free.
Lotro used to be a fantastic MMO, I gave a big chunk of my life to that game.
I quit playing after Mordor though, game just got too pointlessly difficult, even on landscape, lost all the fun I had with it.
I quit playing after Mordor though, game just got too pointlessly difficult, even on landscape, lost all the fun I had with it.
Pretty sure they significantly balanced the difficulty down at some point after its release.
LOTRO would absolutely be my jam but the server performance is absolutely horrendous and the UI desperately needs at least an update for its fonts. It’s a real shame.
I second Lotto, as it’s really great with the more community-focused aspects of MMOs. On my server, you can always find a endgame raid or dungeon group. With the recently added scaled difficulty landscape settings, you can make the landscape content harder or easier for you. Unfortunately the game is aside from the endgame content most times a single player experience. Lower level content is mostly dead, except in between major expansions, when endgame content is not that much requested as the next expac is coming in soon.
It’s been years since I played but can’t recommend GW2 enough if you didn’t try it yet. One of the more unique thempark style MMOs with the focus on dynamic events instead of quests - the events branch out into other events, with different branches based on if you succeeded or failed with some dilogue in between (do stick around when events end!). Lore is rich and story is nice (it has ups and downs).
The game had its rough patches and reinvented intelf several times but now it seems its in a nice place.
Also, I figured I would plug !mmorpg@lemmy.ml - it’s not much active unfortunately, but seeing as there are somr MMO enjoyers here there could be some activity to be had if you don’t yet know it
how does the newest xpac stack up? I’m a longtime player but just lately my interest has waned, but it tends to come and go and it’d be nice to know whether the newest content is worth coming back for. compared to the other xpacs I feel like they did eod dirty with how little time they gave it before releasing another full expansion (hell, path of fire got essentially two full living story releases)
I did not play it but I heard good things. I recommended it because I played it extensively at launch and up to the first xpac. I fell off a bit after, but still played everything up to Icebrood Saga. It’s a great MMO with tons of content just for that.
The game had issues with how they want to do content delivery, they constantly went to reinvent the wheel for ot to bite them at the end each time. From what I heard it is quite simple now - buy xpac once a year, get xpac and living story like updatesfor the year. No logging in to unlock, no buying episodes if you miss them. You basically soft-subscribe for a years worth of content. On the other hand the xpacs will be smaller and without elite specs, but they plan to unlock different existing weapons for the classes.
That’s not such a bad model. And three elite specs feels like the right number - gives you some variety in your playstyle choices without risking overlap with what already exists.
Maybe if i ever get some free time from work ever again (lol), I’ll try to dive back in.
Indeed. The stories are supposed to be self-contained too which should help people to return. Considering it myself but I used to play it so much I sadly overdosed for life it looks like
Check out FF14. Great free trial option. Community is overwhelmingly good (though none is perfect). PvE is pretty damn good, especially once you get to late/end game. PvP is not the best (IMO) but it is very active if you do like it. Has a couple different modes including a 5v5 push the objective mode and a 24v24v24 objective capture mode. No RvR.
Kinda boring/typical MMO at first, but really picks up. With the free trial can play the base game and first two expansions for free, plus get the jobs (classes) from those (most of the ones in the game) up to level 70. Including crafting/gathering jobs. Can easily spend 1000+ hours just on the free trial if you choose to maximize it, but the expansions and sub are worth it IMO. And unlike WOW you van access all those classes on one character and switch with the press of a few buttons.
And the next expansion is summer of next year, so you do have time to catch up if you decide you want to get into it.
Actually the wow you know does exist, they’re called Classic servers and have a huge community.
But I stick to retail servers, wow has come a long way and I think it’s the most fun it’s ever been nowadays.
To each their own tho.
Season of Discovery for WoW classic also looks really interesting. It was just announced and is starting soon I think!
It actually does look super interesting! Like I said, I’m not really into the classic servers, but that Season just might get me. It looks like it can be really fun with the right crowd.
If the server allows wow tokens then no, the wow op knew doesn’t exist anymore. Wow tokens killed guilds and much of the end point of it.
I think you’re kinda missing the forest for the trees, my friend. The game is still there.
Yeah, many guilds have died along the way. That just kinda happens. Join a new one, there are shit loads of 'em.
I’m not missing anything having experienced it both in the original time and now. People mostly no longer play it for the fun of it at end game, they have to “make everything worth their time” because the experience itself isn’t enough for them anymore.
That makes it a very different overall experience to play and not the same game at all. It’s very toxic in fact like a lot of modern multiplayer games can be these days unfortunately.
I usually play Guild Wars 2, but at the moment I’m trying out World of Warcraft: Classic Hardcore. It’s quite fun and challenging.
WoW: Seasons of Discovery has also
peakedpiqued my interest. I hope it has potential to become WoW: Classic+.Piqued. “peaks” are tops of mountains or pinnacle of achievement.
maybe his interest has peaked and it’s only going downhill from here
We will see, once Season of Discovery is out :D
I’d recommend watching Josh Strife Heyes videos on MMOs, but if you want an overview, the biggest ones are WoW, FFXIV, and Guild Wars 2. I’d recommend the latter.
My girlfriend and I play Elder Scrolls Online, and I’ll boot up the Dark Age of Camelot private server Eden from time to time.
So what if WoW isn’t the same? It’s still a good game, and a new one at that. I don’t get the apprehension, unless you want to scratch the nostalgia itch, but I think it’s a waste of time, although WoW Classic is a thing. FFXIV is also pretty good if you can stomach anime designs and weird Japanese fantasy, personally I find it too unrelatable.
I still play EVE online, having a lot of fun in faction warfare these days.
A video came out on the history of the game recently, just a cool 6 hour deep dive. https://youtu.be/BCSeISYcoyI?si=1sKdXt8oPRUTbzs1
I’ve also gotten into Guild Wars 2 recently and I’m a little addicted. The game just feels great: nice community, events are engaging, so much stuff to do but at the same time not demanding like games can be sometimes.
Guild Wars 2 is great!
I’m biased because I’ve been playing it since launch, but I’ve also dabbled in the others and simply couldn’t justify a sub fee when
a) there are so many other games I’d like to play simultaneously and not feel guilty doing so b) there’s no gear treadmill! It really sucks in games like WoW where I want to check out the older content to get up to speed and just the zones were dead. Conversely, I’m doing map completion with my wife in GW2 and even the core maps had a bunch of people running around doing dynamic events and world bosses. The game feels so much more alive!
GW2 is my mmo home world. I started with wow but things changed when I realized Blizzard was always playing catch up with arenanet. There were a few months where blizzard made dragon riding easily accessible but once you hit max level the world content wasn’t as good and the retail community became more toxic and elitist than ever, so I switched back.
All the activity in every zone I visit really does just feel so great. There’s no better sign a game is alive and healthy. It was totally that which hooked me.
All the activity in every zone I visit really does just feel so great. There’s no better sign a game is alive and healthy. It was totally that which hooked me.
So true! It’s a game that really respects your time and there are always people around to help you if you get stuck.
Welcome to GW2, I genuinely hope you continue to enjoy your time here!
Even though I don’t play many MMOs anymore, I still boot up Old School Runescape every now and then. It’s still a good time.
I’ve also heard good stuff about STAR WARS: The Old Republic, but have yet to try it myself
SWTOR has one of the most balefully hateful f2p systems I have ever seen in a mmo. Which was enough to make me not subscribe to the game while I was testing it out.
You can play Classic (Vanilla) WoW officially and you can play Wrath of the Lich King. Next will be Cataclysm. So the old WoW still exist in some way.
