Goodbye Wow...Hello Aht Urgan!!

[Dwarfburg citizen]

After being the victim of mutiny in WoW I decided it was time to return to my MMO roots, FFXI. After a short trip to the store I will be installing FFXI on my 360 ( which will have to wait thanks to an xbox live maintenance) I will be on my merry way to adventures. Anyone here still play that? Im looking to join a group thats already established.

[Althane]

Out of curiosity, since this seems to be a MMO related topic...

How do MMORPGs play on console games? Isn't the keyboard much more suited to the playing of an RPG like that?

Jes' wondering.

[EVILNess]

There are keyboards for the consoles, mice too. As for me... WoW is a cruel mistress.

Everytime I resolve to play something else, they throw an empty promise my way. And I believe them.

I'm like a god damned battered wife who believes that her beatings are merely a phase and that things will get better.

And with that wonderful analogy I point out the newest bone Blizzard has thrown my Feral Druid ass...

All Druids can train Innervate at level 40. Now if we could do something about server lines, crashes, honor farming, something other than raiding to do at 60, gold farmers, and the people in Barrens chat.

But we can't have it all, now can we. After all... Blizzard saw fit to fix the real problem. Bearform Druids can now dance.

[Fifthfiend]

Remember, Blizzard hurts you because it loves you.

[Chipper173]

I believe that FFXI is the only true villain here. I still think back on my days of playing it, and saying, "It could've been so great..."

Then I remind myself that:

Soloing was impossible.
All the good jobs were at level 30.
Leveling took SO INCREDIBLY LONG.
Crappy interface.
Lose EXP when you die. (Seriously, who thinks that this is a good idea?!)
Any one of a million other reasons.

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

I believe that FFXI is the only true villain here.
... WoW is a cruel mistress

no no, i think you're both missing the point. MMO's are the great evil plauging our land, not any one game, but the entire genre. They suck fun, innovation and money out of the gaming industry and leave nothing but shattered husks of gamers in thier wake.

in other news, CoV is looking really good right now...

[CrazyBen]

NOOOO, Deathosaurus! CoV is really fun initially, but by the time you get to be around lvl 20, it will have become soul-crushingly boring. This is because 90% of the missions you do will fit into one of the following categories-
1. Run around in an instanced area until you find the enemy with a special name, then kill everyone in the room.
2. Run around in an instanced area until you find the glowy box, click on it, then kill everyone in the room.
3. Run around in an instanced area until you find the friendly NPC, kill everyone in the room, then go back to the door you came in through killing everyone in your way. (And these are a real pain in the arse, especially in multi-level areas).
Somethimes there will be variations, such as combining two of them, or having multiple glowy boxes. And forget teaming. It is a rare event indeed for two people to be on at the same time on the same day more than once a month. Your friends list serves only to remind you of the fun times you had, and the player organizations (Super Groups) do little more than eat up a large part of your income in exchange for making what amounts to a large house that you didn't have any say in the design of and can't modify.

Personally, I'm lamenting Planetside turning out to be such crud, and hoping Huxley and Warhammer: Age of Reconing will fulfill my MMO needs better.

[Arlia Janet]

Someone finally convinced me to give Guild Wars a try, and I absolutely love it. The graphics are better, less cartoony than WoW. There is a good learning curve and the game doesn't punish you for making the wrong choice about how to develop your character (you can always go back). The game doesn't reward people who spend all day playing. They have the same strength and equipment you do, it just may be shinier.

AND IT IS 100% FREE.

It's not a true MMORPG per say... because it doesn't have any of the crappy baggage that comes with every other MMORPG.

[Incendius]

Guild Wars is as of date the only MMORPG (or psuedo one if your retentative) that has served to hold my attention since the day it came out (and before as I was in the beta). It is simply, beyond words how fun it, and how much strategy can be incorporated into it. There's simply hundreds of different ways you can create your character, and its easy to level up (Even more so in the factions campaign.... I'm not done with it yet cause its simply so fast, and comparatively a lot harder then the normal campaign. Its extremely fun though, cept when you can't get a good group).

I just got factions, and I am glad I did so, the two new classes are great and add even more into gameplay, like teleporting to your opponent and then slaughtering them. How is THAT not awesome?

[Chipper173]

Guild Wars is pretty good. I don't have the unconditional love that others seem to have for it, but I'll load it up from time to time.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Someone finally convinced me to give Guild Wars a try, and I absolutely love it. The graphics are better, less cartoony than WoW. There is a good learning curve and the game doesn't punish you for making the wrong choice about how to develop your character (you can always go back). The game doesn't reward people who spend all day playing. They have the same strength and equipment you do, it just may be shinier.

AND IT IS 100% FREE.

It's not a true MMORPG per say... because it doesn't have any of the crappy baggage that comes with every other MMORPG.

Necro/ranger specializing in ranged pin attacks, contageous DOT plague spell, Putrid Explosion and Soul Feast.

Plague a forerunner in PVP, they run back to their team to regroup, infects them, they go for the gold before they lose too much health. My team cuts one down, I explode it for 106 damage. Usually by now theres one or two corpses in the fighting area. I blow those up too and the chain goes on. If I get low on health: Soul Feast a corpse to get full health again. If I get cursed/plagued/spell DOT I simply use the spell that shunts one of the debilitating thingies onto the target.

WHEE FOR CRUELTY!


Best build I've ever made. Extremely situational but damned effective when the chips fall in my favor.

Back on subject, The biggest turnoff of FFXI, for me at least, is the lack of blue mages. A blue mage that has lived long enough to build up a fair repetoir of spells is damn powerful force to be reckoned with. Don't believe me? Look at Strago. That old buzzard helped kill Kefka with ease!

[Chipper173]

The expansion introduced Blue mages.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

The secret of Blue Magery! (http://ffxiblu.ytmnd.com/)

On a more serious note: WANT!

[Donomni]

You can also play as a pirate or puppetmaster.

Oh, wait, "Corsair", not pirate. I still say yarr.

[Eltargrim]

I'd just like to split hairs and point out that Guild Wars is a CORPG, not a MMORPG. Competitive Online RPG ;)

I love it all the same. If only my computer could run it again (I need more RAM >_<)

[MasterOfMagic]

Bah, same difference. I play Guild Wars off and on too, and I'll also vouche for its fun facter.

My characters never seem to go over level 15 though :gonk: If I could find a guild I'd probably get into it more.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

[QUOTE=Donomni]You can also play as a pirate or puppetmaster.

Puh, so? Blue mage!

[Althane]

As someone who's always been interested in playing an MMORPG, but never has played one... is Guild Wars a good game to get hooked on?

And a second question, will it run on a Geforce 2.

(I really, really, really need to upgrade. >.> )

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

Guild Wars is mostly a PvP game. from what i understand there is a fair bit of PvE and even solo content, but the main draw is the, uh, wars among...guilds. if you're hella down with PvP, then check it out.
if you're looking for mostly PvE and lots of grouping, then World of Warcraft might be more your style. its not perfect, but its definatly one of the best out there.
City of Heroes/Villians is another good game to break yourself in on. not alot of depth to the game, but its fun.

i've got a GeForce 2 as well and i could run the GW beta (512 RAM). it wasnt at top end graphics wise, but it ran.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Althane, to really get the full benefit of PVP you have to go through the campaign to unlock weapon pieces (shafts, blades, pommels, bow staves, etc), runes to enhance armor and weapons, and especially skills.

The more classes you unlock skills for the more creative and effective your builds can be.

[Eltargrim]

My graphics card is little more than a GeForce 2, and it handled GW fine. I didn't have enough RAM though (256, but horribly allocated; I need to format my HDD sometime >_<).

While Guild Wars has a very strong PvP aspect, ANet doesn't neglect their PvE fans; from what I've heard, it's similar to the idea of WoW. GW goes PvP > PvE in priority (and even then, it's a gross oversimplification), while WoW goes PvE > PvP (Correct me if I'm wrong).

[Arlia Janet]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think GW has just added a HUGE amount of PVE stuff with GW:Factions (a stand alone game BTW if you don't want to buy both). From what I understand, PVE characters and only PVE characters can duke it out for control of a continent. That's pretty freaking cool.

On topic: I never understood games like WoW where you don't actually own the game. You just sort of rent it from Blizzard. You buy the software, and then you pay more money to have the opportunity to use it. Then, there are some (foolish) people that spend more real money to buy fake WoW money that they can only use if they spend more real money to keep up the subscription. It just seems like a bad deal to me. The economics of it put you in a utility debt from day one.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

I hope so, the PVE was seriously lacking in the first GW installment.

At least I still have my sparkly hands!

[Zeldias]

FFXI could be good if it didn't take so painfully long to level up in it. I'd also like it if the skillsets were more in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics rather than how it currently is.

WoW would be good if it wasn't a better looking EQ that levels you faster.

That doth be mine verdict.

[RdmSythes]

Lol, check my avatar. It's obvious I play FFXI. Personally, I think it rocks.

Also, I'd like to bring attention to something that I'm really quite tired of hearing people say:

I still think back on my days of playing it, and saying, "It could've been so great..."

Then I remind myself that:

Soloing was impossible.


Honestly, when has the Final Fantasy series EVER had a single, solo-main character? C'mon now. The reason soloing in FFXI is impossible is because it's sticking to the roots of the entire FF series.

I play on Valefor server, if anyone who currently plays is interested. Send me a /tell, and I'll be more than willing to help out.

[Chipper173]

Honestly, when has the Final Fantasy series EVER had a single, solo-main character? C'mon now. The reason soloing in FFXI is impossible is because it's sticking to the roots of the entire FF series
That's true, but getting to the right level to party-and then finding a party-was like pounding a nail into your hand and then just letting it sit there. Sure after a while it doesn't hurt like hell, but there's a dull pain that permiates everything you do from then on.

Only, that's not much. Because you nailed your hand to something.