MMORPGs

If you don't mind 3rd person games you might try Diablo II. It is free to play online. If you really enjoy the genre you might wanna try and pick up some regular RPGs, like Morrowind. There is a huge fanmod community behind it,and the graphics are stunning. The Baldur's Gate family was good, too, and has tons of old and new material available. I hear the new generation Neverwinter Nights is good as well, though I haven't played it.

I play Everquest religously, but frankly sometimes I need to play something that doesn't rely on the tact of other people. My suggestion would be a good, single player RPG or two and save your subscription cash for Evercrack.

I have Morrowind for the Xbox. I like it. I like Diablo II too, although I've rarely played it, as my cousin owned it. However, with single player RPGs, I tend to prefer the Japanese ones such as Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star Online (which although is technically online, is still more like a single player game than like an online one).

I think I'll see if my cousin still has D2 and if he'll give it to me. After all, with a wife and a kid, he doesn't need games anymore.

Star Wars Knights of the old republic is so ridiculously pro - it took at least 80 hours of my life... I recommend you try that - the X-box platform is really good as well... I wont be purchasing or playing FF, because I know how awesome and addictive it will be...

I fear for my wellbeing when world of Warcraft comes out though... vitamin E through sunlight will be non-existent!!!...

BAM!!!

Try City of Heroes. It's difficult to describe its appeal unless you used to daydream of being a superhero as a kid. It's really good in my opinion, but other people find it boring or stupid.

EVE online! Massive space-adventure RPG, kind of today's version of ELITE (late 80's). If you like time-consuming stuff like Morrowind, it might be your thing. I think there's still a 10-day eval at fileplanet. Try it, you won't be sorry....or then again...

Well, I sure like it anyway.

City of Heroes is an excellent MMORPG... I've played and/or tested most of them out there and CoH provides the most bang for your buck. You're a superhero in a city filled with them fighting hordes of evil-doers. Think of Justice League multiplied about a thousand times and you get a feel for how many heroes there are running around Paragon City. While it may sound dumb to have a city full of superheroes running around, it works amazingly well. The gameplay is very simple (you kill evil-doers) and most of the complex extra stuff is taken out (no inventory, no crafting, none of that floofy crap). The interface is about as intuitive as it gets. The graphics are vibrant and fun, you definitely get the feeling you're in a comic book... especially with some of the costumes you see running around.

If you can envision a superhero in your mind, you can probably make it spot-on (or at least approximate it).

Fear me, for I am Captain Lemming! Rally to my battle-cry of "To the cliffs!" Quake in fear evil-doers, for your end is neigh!

I have played EQ and SWG. I think EQ is the best.

I have heard City of Heroes is fun, but isn't as deep as other MMORPGs.

I have heard Dark Ages of Camelot is good if you like player versus player combat in a fantasy MMORPG.

I am very much looking forward to EQ2.

My experience is that most people only have time to seriously play one MMOG at a time.

Thanks for the responses! I'm going to check out all of those games and see which ones appeal to me.

My experience is that most people only have time to seriously play one MMOG at a time.

That's true. I'm already experiencing that, but I'm such an glutton.

 

"Hopefully I'll be able to have a social life and an online life!"

I think you'll find that this is such an untruth, especially if you continue to pursue more than one game...

during my long experience with MMORPG's i have played the following games:
Ultima Online
EverQuest
Anarchy Online
Dark Age of Camelot
Star Wars Galaxies
Final Fantasy XI

and i bought city of heroes but can not get it to connect due to my college network. I would have to say the best on the list of games i have played would have to be Star Wars Galaxies, but old school UO is close with everquest coming in third.

Re:

" (no inventory, no crafting, none of that floofy crap)."

Those things aren't definitively RPG, but honestly they are a hallmark of role playing games. I think that most people would get really, really bored without something to do besides kill stuff. I have found everquest to be a good balance of FPS-style killing and intricate sim-style complexity.

I've heard that SWG is very, very oriented to people who like the 'floofy' type stuff described above. No doubt there is room for many levels of complexity in RPGs, though.

Before there were MMORPGs there were MUDs.

Link

And they are still fun (and free) to play.

Zoomba and Baker said everything I was, but more better. Yeah, it can get boring without some freaky crafting or class change quest, but that is just personal taste. I hate having to run around looking for the Great Garfiknle to MAfoozle my glorblat into turning into a +5 Sword of Shineyness. The best part is that there is a REASON to play. What exactly is the storyline to EQ? iRO? FFXI and CoH have stories, but CoH is always there because of the missions. But, if you do get CoH, for the love of god do not pick a Blaster. Over 2/3 of the population is them, and they're all retards. The last thing I need is someone else out there giving my venerable fire/fire Blaster a bad name. Go for a Defender or Tanker. We can always use more of those.

The best thing about CoH is: no player killing. Granted there is kill stealing, which ticks some people off; me I'll go find other stuff to kill... er arrest

what i hate about mmorpgs these days that MOST are fantasy themed. yeah yeah i know these are one of the most popular genres and blah blah but, can isnt there something more original, more creative. i wouldnt mind seeing a crime, war, or space themed (not Star Wars) MMORPG. go figure.

I was talking to my brother about the MMORPGs I was trying, and he said there should be a ninja one, kind of like Tenchu. I can't help but agree with him, especially if it was a game made by Team Ninja (with ninja babes!).

Keep your eye out for Tabnula Rasa due out in November 2004.  The best kept secret in the industry.

Richard Garriot will, once again change the face of gaming.

Jeremy: I've read a bit about Tabula Rasa, but it didn't seem all that different to me. Have a link to an article that points things out? The only thing the one I read said that you could travel quickly around the world,etc., which has been an aspect ot everquest since around 2001.

Would love to hear more about it though, sounds intriguing.

Thats the thing backer street....no one knows EXACTLy what will be in the game.  Thats one thing that makes it VERY different.

I read an article a while back that alluded to the fact that the game has it's own "language" which allows players from different nations to communicate effectively and not  have all the 13yr old trash talk.

That's why I don't like Phantasy Star Online as an "online" game. There's too many cheaters, that there's really no point in playing the game online.
I haven't met any bad apples yet, but I don't play as often as I could. Well, there were times that a conflict was afoot in FFXI and people were being annoying, but most people seem to be into the whole RPing gig.
As for more MMORPGs, I've decided to stick with the two I already have. Most of the games seem pretty similar, and I'd like to save some of my time and money. However, that might all change when WoW, TR, and EQ2 are released.

I played text muds on a local bbs back in the day when a 9600 baud modem was bleeding edge technology. I played NWN on AOL, and Shadows of Yserbius on the Sierra network. Read about UO, but never got to play it. Picked up EQ shortly after the first expansion came out. I played between 2 and 3 years, and have since played pretty much every other MMO out there. Nowadays I spend most of my time betatesting games. Personally, I still think EQ is the best of all the games I played, though that may just be because it was the first 3d MMO I'd played.

Most of the MMOs out now offer a free trial for 7 or 15 days. I would suggest trying out the trial before buying any game, as it will give you a basic feel for the game, though truthfully many are fun in the beginning only to peter out halfway.

My wife and I play a LOT of DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot). We love it obviously

We've play most other MMORPGs out there at one point or another, but keep coming back to DAoC. We've played EQ, City of Heroes, Final Fantasy XI, Asheron's Call 2, Starwars Galaxies, and I've even playing Ultima Online.

Someone above mentioned that DAoC is a good game if you're into Player vs. Player games, but that's only a part of it. While yes, there is a purely PvP server just like there is for most other games, DAoC did something really different for it's normal servers.... especially with the JUST released New Frontiers expansion. It'll all about your "realm" versus the other "realms". On normal servers, you don't even refer to it as PvP, it's RvR. It's all about taking keeps, forming raids to take relics (like Thor's Hammer) from the other realms, which provides a bonus to all those in your realm. Or you can, as many people do, just purely do PvE (go fight monsters) like you do in games like Everquest. The world is pretty huge now, and with the ability to play in three different and unique realms, it's like playing a whole new game when you decide to make some Hibernian characters instead of Midgardian or Albion characters. They did a great job with housing, and merchants, and overall I think Mythic has done a great job on the game.

I feel like that guy from the Hardee's commercials now... "I'm not 'officially' their spokesman"

I hear a lot of good stuff about DAoC everywhere. I think the clincher for me was the thing about cloaks (it annoys me to know that my character on FFXI has a mantle, but I can't see it). I definitely need to try it, and I see that it has a demo, but would you be so kind as to answer a few questions I have about the game before I download the demo?

1. It says after the seventh day, that they'll start charging. Does that mean that the game itself is free, and I only have to pay the monthly fee?


2. Are the expansion packs free?


3. How much is the monthly fee? I see $10, but I've noticed at least one one game that it the price was more than it said on many sites.

1. I'm not sure. My wife and I have had our accounts for a long long time, and bought them straight off the shelf before there was a 'free trial'. I would venture a guess that this is the case though, that the "basic" game is free when you get one of these 'free trial' accounts.

2. Some expansions are free, and some aren't. There have been two free ones, New Frontiers (released yesterday, and is really cool!), and the housing expansion. The other larger expansions do cost money, but are big enough expansions that I think it's valid to charge for them. One was for Shrouded Isles, which was a huge expansion with tons of zones, dungeons and such added per realm (there are three realms) and 2 classes, and 1 race added per realm. The other expansion was more recent, it's called The Trials of Atlantis. It's also huge!! It added about 9 new really big zones, some dungeons, Master Levels, artifacts, another race per realm, and a whole bunch of other stuff...

3. It's basically $10 a month, but my wife and I pay 6 months at a time, which I believe drops the monthly rate below $10. I'm not sure though since I can't go to the website from here


Oh... I would recommend checking out www.camelotherald.com. Mythic has done something with this game that no other game has come close to doing even half as well. They post all kinds of stats, and useful information about your realm, characters, etc.. to their website, and have much of it available via XML so that if you want to present this data in some other way, you're free to. They also keep you VERY informed about what's being changed, when patchs are going to happen and what's going to be in them via this website. They even have a server up all the time that's deemed a 'test server'. Whenever changes are being queued up for a patch, the changes will have already been made on the test server, and you can copy you characters over to this server to check out what it's going to be like for yourself.

If you do end up deciding to play, let me know... I could help you out with a little starting equipment, money, etc...

I first got started playing MUDs, which unfortunately contributed to me getting somewhere around a gpa of 1.3 in high school, after that I played DII for a while, which got very boring, despite my efforts to keep playing it. I then turned to Everquest which Is also a very addicting game, Although I dont let it take my life away like the MUDs did. I get burnt out on that one once and a while and have to do something else. I tried Earth and Beyond which was a total waste of time, (they are shutting that one down cause it didn't do well). And I play Neverwinter Nights online, and they have servers based around Lord of the rings or Dragonlance, and thats good enough for me. EQ when I like it and NWN when I dont.
From the Looks of it they are coming out with a Matrix MMORPG which could be interesting if they do it right. ie not like dialbo 2 or earth and beyond.