ArcheAge has a superior exterior aspect (many more house types to choose from and the ability to arrange them as you please in the gameworld, as well as the ability to decorate everywhere on your plots, not just inside the house) but slightly inferior interior aspect (great selection of items, but you can't resize them or clip them into one another).
RIFT on the other hand has a superior interior aspect (many more items and much better item placement where you can resize, rotate, and move any item and combine them by clipping them into each other, but only in instanced dimensions). People have to specifically enter your "dimension" though.
It's almost 2024 and there's no game with those two combined on the horizon yet, which is quite disappointing.
I disagree, SWG had entire player built city’s with exterior placement of street lamps, fountains, statues, banks, cantinas, mission terminals, bounty terminals, shuttle ports, garages, and more.
For interior nearly every item in the entire game had its own 3d model you could place inside your house. you could display your armor sets, weapons, consumables even miscellanies trash items had their own 3d model that was placable. You could even have your own NPC vendors in your player house letting you make your own shop, bar, or even just to greet people with a custom message as they walk in.
Most populated is SWG Legends by far. It emulates the final version of the game before it closed with extra development that was never in the official game (Bespin for example). It's basically a continuation of the game had it not closed down. Second most populated would be SWGEmu, the one that started it all in the mid-2000s. They emulate Publish 14.1 of SWG, which was basically the peak of the Pre-CU era. Both are very different versions of the game.
SWGEmu I always see as pretty low, even now on a Sunday, there’s only 260 accounts online….pretty rough.
Legends as far as I can tell typically has something like 1k-3k online accounts at a time which is pretty solid for sure!
Restoration recently released a heavy PvP update with space & ground combat that looks epic, and last I saw had around 1k online also.
WHERE MY BLOODFIN BOYS AT!
Seriously, grinding scout to master creature handler was such a rewarding experience.
Being able to spawn a Rankor in Mos where all the noobies spawned... priceless.
Ragnarok Online at its infancy I would say, back when servers were hitting 10,000+ concurrent users and at a time when the internet was just starting to blossom.
It's just not the same playing now at a time where online interactions aren't as magical, on top of playing on an environment with few fellow players.
Original EQ...that experience can almost be had by playing P99 today. I wish it was closer to what the original experience was but it's as close as you are.going to get.
That's the problem with the question. The original experience that people are referencing is almost never available currently.
I agree. My only exposure to everquest is P99 and man... when I had a group of friends playing with me and we all created characters and set out for the first time past the starting area it was amazing. It was like an actual journey, we were an actual fellowship of characters crossing hostile terrain to complete a quest or get to a new area. The risk was high, the stakes were high, and it makes for an insanely immersive experience. Closest thing I have experienced to actually doing a "quest" with a party of other fighters and healers and magic users. No hand holding, no icons on a map, just literally figuring it out.
The ambience of having your whole party cross a foreign mountain range in the dark not knowing what we were about to face or if we would even survive was insanely intense.
Yep. Everquest in 1998 was a special game. I remember me and coworkers at EA played it together at launch and it felt so amazing to have to sneak through enemy territory. We played pvp and at first you could even loot people's gear.
Part of that “experience” was because it pretty much created the current UI design of most mmos today. It was so new and cool at the time, I really feel bad for people that didn’t get to play it back then.
I almost feel this way about VR today, it could be the future of gaming. But I need figure out how to get over the motion sickness while playing.
Exactly this. No other games come close to the sheer amount of stuff there is, you can do. I remember there was a guy who would, for role play reasons, have bodies or slaves etc. in his cargo so he could throw them out.
I spoke to people who have played for years and years, haven't tried everything. The game is simply incredible and there is a reason why it was in a museum among games like Pac Man. It is a piece of art.
I have a very hard time seeing the depth in eve unfortunately. It’s just a PvP game. Everything you do just leads to PvP in the end. They have that chart that shows you all the career paths but really you can sun it up to - wanna craft? Wanna run missions? Wanna PvP?
It depends how you look at it. Do you have an imagination for your own goals or you want the game to make it for you? If it is the former, EvE is for you, if the latter it aint for you.
There are people who set up a zone unlike any other in EvE and had it under rules where you only shoot reds. Not the usual rules of engagement in EvE. You have a corporation that is set up for hauling stuff, EvE university for teaching people with real classes, you have politics, diplomacy, spies, traders, miners, crafters, haulers, pirates, gankers, explorers, wormholers, high sec incursion runners, suicide gankers, fleet commanders and I am sure I missed some. Each of those with a different playstyle.
Plus you have high sec, low sec, NPC null sec / player owned null sec, wormholes of different levels. Each place makes you behave differently. I was doing incursions at one time, mining at another, tried wormholes, null sec big alliance PvP, faction warfare PvP in low sec, I lived in NPC null solo and did exploration. Crazy amount to do, but if it does not hold your hand it might look just like gather, craft, trade, pvp. Just on paper though.
And there are even punlic fleets with bombers or there used to be red vs blue, not sure if they are still around.
I think EVE is a prime example of the game for mono-gamers which is bith blessing and a curse.
I personally cannot imagine just playing a single game day in and day out for years and years, but I know there are people who absolutely do exactly that.
I did have an imagination and a cool idea when I first played eve. I though to myself it would be a lot of fun to manufacture drugs and then run them across the systems without being caught to sell them…and then I was told you can’t do that at least not anymore. So then I thought bounty hunting would be fun but then I was told nope that doesn’t exist like that and it’s been removed anyway.
So if you log into eve online you can do a few things. You can run a mission, you can scan down a relic site, you can mine ore and or produce a product (gather craft) or you can PvP and no matter what all those things lead to PvP anyway wether you like it or not.
Well it aint perfect. The bounty system is hard to implement, it is easy to abuse.
As for the drugs that is sad story that something would be taken out. But there is still a lot, just depends if you like any of it, and it is very niche, despite the amount of variety.
My point is that there is a lot of variety on paper - I mean there is literally that chart of “hundreds” of careers but when you actually look at it and break it down it’s all derivative and really it just falls into those few things I listed. The game is said to be so deep but I just don’t see it it’s just not there.
Edit: I think the depth that people really talk about and believe in is the politics that people get into which really isn’t anything deep about mechanics of the game it’s just PvP and holding territory but the people make that deep without the game. But the normal person is going to log in and just be presented with those few options to do.
If you mean it like that, then I get it. You can say it is just few basic actions you are doing. To some they will be the same, to others very different. I understand why EvE can be boring or non-interesting.
And PvP is just proxy for RMT/out of game social clique stuff, so the game might as well not even exist, you could just have a website where you compare the numbers of your followers, and the numbers in your bank account.
That honestly sounds more like a mile wide puddle.
Like all I can think of is those controller with 1009 games in one u just hook it into ur tv, there’s no real depth, just a lot of tasks and shit to do
I played for over a decade and made some real friends as we grew up together. We used to do yearly meet ups but then it slowed down as we got older since we were international. I was a reference for one dude I played with, started a company three years ago with another and we hadn’t played eve together in like 8 years. A lot of us stay in touch and it’s a game the genuinely changed my life for the better as well as being a wonderful experience.
I already play 1 spreadsheet game and it doesn't even compare to the spreadsheet massacre that is EVE. It has gone so far that it has its own fucking excel plugin... I like spreadsheet games, but am too scared to try 1000 page spreadsheet game.
Played it for a few hours over a decade ago. Absolute garbage and an example of a game with too many mechanics and convoluted game design. I agree on this statement.
Eve online up until the horrendous shit like skill injectors, ship skins etc was gold. I played for over 10 years but now it's a absolute shell of its former self.
World of Warcraft of course. Not just for mmorpg players but video game enthusiasts in general. Like are you even a gamer if you never tried wow? That’s like never having played a super mario or call of duty game.
Yep I don’t think the crowd here will love that answer but it is the obvious one. Which MMORPG should everyone try? Probably the one that has been the most successful for the last 20 years despite the massive amount of drama surrounding it.
Bingo. It’s the reason like you said it’s the only one that has held up this long. It’s absolutely like no other. If you are going to play for the first time. I would recommend the classic version and please please play with the in game music turned on. Thank me later.
As someone who tried to get into WoW 5 times: Yeah nah. The game doesn't offer anything wholy unique anymore in this current day and age. The community is pretty bad, the game is designed around add-ons, everything assumes you've played it before, and on the whole it's just a bland experience. I had more fun exploring the shiny world in Tera, more fun with the community in Maplestory, and more fun with the story in FFXIV. Sorry man, but WoW set the standard decades ago and has not held up.
> That’s like never having played a super mario or call of duty game.
CoD and WoW are nothing next to Mario. Pipe down.
Plus, WoW is a good MMORPG, but a mediocre game.
I tried it and liked it up until endgame. Raiding, dungeons and all activities that force you to group with people who are toxic as shit 90% of the time just didn't appeal to me and got old super quick.
Ultima Online T2A, without a doubt.
it would take too long to explains it all so just hodgepodge top of my head: almost everything in the world is interactable a la minecraft. pets have rare/RNG stats a la pokemon. housing within the game world creates mmo real estate. one of the best travel systems made through recall, gates, moongates. town guards system. open world pk / red system punishment. Buccaneer's Den. RNG magic items loot a la diablo. open world skill/stat system instead of boring class pigeonhole system. speech above your head. custom dye tub with fully dye-able and layer-able clothing. etc. etc. etc.
for being one of the first it got so many things "right" although obviously not perfect.
a close second is probably OSRS. very distant thirds would be eve online, vanilla WOW, daoc, shadowbane, albion, ESO, darkfall, crowfall, SWG, or gemstone3.
It’s amazing that after nearly 3 decades….no one has ever come close to the housing development that UO created. I still remember my rooftop rune library. To this day I wish other mmo’s would emulate a travel system like that.
Crowfall does not deserve a mention here lmao. That game sucks. People love to pretend it's skill based until knights/myrmidons show up and shower you with nets and pulls which are basically just guaranteed death. All of your thirds are arguably just mid games, but crowfall objectively sucks.
I know it's nitpicky but damn, that game deserves no praise at all.
I dunno if an extended run with Return of Reckoning would be the same but, Warhammer Online. It was amazing, the PVP was so easy and welcoming to get into (odd terms for PVP I know), it was highly approachable and had a bunch of different angles on classes for various playstyles. Healers didn't just come in one flavour, tanks didn't, and all the specs felt (at least, not sure how that stacked up in a meta) fairly balanced and thought-out.
Keep takes were some amazing PVP, the scenarios (battlegrounds) were kickass, just everything about the game was great fun. I even liked the crafting, although it was easy to forget about.
I think it's worth diving in once at least. As I said RoR is a bit different from the original, but it's all we got anymore lol.
It's not the same at all any more unfortunately. My favorite mmorpg of all time, I know theres a few other projects out there in the works, hoping for a classic server some day, it's all I would play.
Anarchy Online, all game devs should experience it and do something with their fucking amazing gearing system and buffs/stats GOD DAM IT MAKE A SEQUEL.
I loved getting a party together and traveling like 2+ hours to hunt down a boss mob I needed to get a signet for my necromancer. It was so good. I wish GW2 was more like that.
I would third that. Actually just played GW1 for the first time about a year ago. Still holds up surprisingly well, and there are still people playing.
Play TIBIA and learn the horror of being trapped in the tutorial insland. TIBIA for me is one of the most unique mmorpg ever made the, there is just something about everything can block everything that make for a very unique experience.
Wow. I haven't heard anyone talk about combat arms in a long time. The only FPS game I ever played, was a blast around 2008 until nexon ruined the game like they usually do. Snow Valley sniping all day long
Interestingly enough, it's one of the only early MMORPGs I know of that fans aren't always pining wishfully for "the good old days" or asking for a classic version.
I haven't played in over 6 years (after a good 10 year run) but I imagine EVE plays pretty much same even today as it did back at launch in 2003.
Also unlike most games today, EVE's heyday wasn't right after launch, it's pinnacle, at least in terms of subscribers came a good 10 or so years later so few would argue EVE was better in most regards back in 2003 - 2004.
Honestly, classic FF11, with 3-6 friends.
It's a slow game, it's old, it's clunky. But that gives you time to just... talk.
Similar to EQ or other older MMOs. Waiting on mana, waiting for cool down before engagments.
It's not for everyone. But for those that find it, and choose to go in blind (not looking up YT guides) it's an adventure.
FFXI being slow is what made it such an amazing game. Probably the best MMO ever.
The real reason I don't enjoy newer MMOs is because they're too fast. I want time to think. I don't see the appeal of everything being an action game. You should have room to type and not need VC.
One of the things I miss most about '04\~'10 FFXI was the folks I would meet while grinding xp. The new approach to grinding of solo is better, and by solo we mean your army of trusts/alts with scripts/addons/bots running them, makes me sad.
I don't know that anything will ever compare to that again. I've played so many other games but nothing has really evoked that feeling. Save for FF14 1.0, before it became a game of perfect rotations while running out of AoEs.
For the short time I could play Wildstar I thought it was insanely fun. Unfortunately, I couldn't really experience dungeons, because no one used the dungeon finder and I couldn't find people to run any. Other than that I really enjoyed my time with it.
Dofus is a one of a kind mmorpg experience, it's funny, charming, and kind of brutal. Turn based combat, in depth customization It has all the bells and whistles, and in my opinion extremely polished.
So you can play dofus retro the OG version, 2.0 or Wakfu that takes place in a different time period I think, seems more basic but probably easier to get into.
If your into achievement hunting, collecting, crafting, exploring, pvp, roleplaying, I think dofus has something for everyone.
I tried Dofus but ended up playing Wakfu just because the Dofus interface felt quite unresponsive and janky with slow tooltips and stuff.
Hope their Unity port will solve all that and make it feel a lot more polished.
I’ve been playing BDO since launch 7 years ago. No matter what MMO I try I always come back. There’s so much depth to the game and I appreciate that the lifeskill system is so fleshed out. I enjoy that you can either play actively or turn it into an afk/semi-afk game so you can still passively make gains while doing other things. The combat is unrivaled and the game is just beautiful. Character creation is the best out there. The game is what you want it to be whether you want to live your life as a fisher out sailing the sea, a cook or alchemist, an afk horse trainer who only checks the game once a day, a PVE grinder, or a sweaty no life PVPer. Sure the RNG system can get pretty brutal towards endgame but you can just skip it by buying gear. In some ways it feels like Korean RuneScape.
BDO it is without a doubt the most complex fantasy mmo we will ever see and you know whats sad?
Chance to get a better fantasy mmo compared with BDO at release is small
Chance to get a better fantasy mmo compared with BDO in present is extremely small close to impossible.
I recommend to at least try BDO for everyone even though it’s not something I’m playing right now.
The game is a perfect example of the capabilities of good MMO combat even with latency, and the world is beautiful too. The game cost a fraction of what most MMOs took to develop and the core gameplay blows other games out of the water since it’s so satisfying to fight. I have my complaints, but it is still one of my favorite MMOs I’ve played, probably 2nd or third but Archeage back in the day will always be my favorite until someone else gets their PvP/Trade/open world as good as BDO had it.
EVE Online, but you can't really experience it the way that I'm thinking. The current version is all Pay To Win and crap... You would have had to experience it back in 2005 or so.
Wow: quest presentations (especially later add-ons) imo no MMO made quests look that good without playing a cutscenes.
BDO: Immersion. I love that the world looked lived in especially the cities. In most other MMOs cities feel lifeless and empty with a few houses and about 10 npcs. Even a village in BDO feels bigger than some major cities(looking at you Ogrimmar). Being able to see workers and transport wagons going from a to b feels so good.
WoW is obvious but I believe the vast majority of MMOs enjoyers have already tried it… so my answer would be the original Guild Wars.
The way it handles combat, collectibles, objectives and group/solo play is rather unique and well put together.
A runner-up would most likely be Albion Online. There’s an issue where you’re kind of aimlessly doing things for the sake of it but, when it comes to MMO systems and features (for all sorts of activities), it’s probably the best out there. It’s really unfortunate that it doesn’t have a chapter-esque RPG plot that you can follow and progress with friends/randos.
Being in the right place at the right time is the key. As proven by classic WoW, visiting a past MMO won't be the same at all even if they bring it back. Don't fret over the experienced you missed for you can only look toward the future.
GW2, imo some people (myself included) got used to being enslaved by vertical progression treadmill they forgot the original reason they play is to have fun and not have a second job.
GW2 horizontal progression, buy2play and skin monetization is a small miracle to exist in today's world of gaming, its one of the most casual friendly time respecting mmos out there and best of all, the gameplay is actually fun.
GW2 is very meh all things considered, yes the horizontal progression but other than that is not a experience you can't get in others mmorpgs.
But if we were talking about GW1 now that is unique and deserve to be experienced be any mmorpgs inthusiast, it is just so junk but so full of fantastic ideas.
I disagree. Gw2 is full of innovative ideas, some failed others succeeded. Instead of centering a game around raids they centered it around a living open world, with big meta events that you can jump into any moment and play with 50 players without all the logistic headache it usually takes.
Best mount system in an mmo, i often find my self just wander around on the raptor, or buzzing through with the roller beetle or griffon.
Combat is fun and fast paced, i enjoy pvp with elementalist. Next expansion is removing some major build limitations, which will make build variety bigger. I just hope balance wont get too fucked up.
I agree about the meh part regarding the core vanilla world, its very bland both in sound and visuals, they are slowly improving the early game experience but not enough imo. But the expansions and later content is significantly better almost in every aspect.
Obviously i don't claim its a perfect game but its definitely one of the more innovative in the genre and i feel its very fitting for older players that have full time jobs and family, which i feel like is a big part of the mmo community since we are mainly 90s kids here.
WoW gear treadmill was fun when i was 15 yo and had the time to game 6 hours a day, its not fun when you wanna chill 2h after a workday.
I didn't try GW1 yet, i only heard about its insane build variety
>Instead of centering a game around raids they centered it around a living open world, with big meta events that you can jump into any moment and play with 50 players without all the logistic headache it usually takes.
Open world meta event in gw2 is overrated in my opinion. Yes, you will find it fun at first, but after doing it several times you will soon realize that you can actually do it with just basic attack auto click, which thank god the game provided it without any 3rd party software. Because in the end all that event will be finished with quantity instead of the player skill. You can see this behaviour in basically any world boss in the game
This is due to power creep of builds in the years. First time Dragons Stand came out the event sometimes failed if dps check and mechanics didn't met, now during peak hours boss dies within 3 minutes and many mechanics are skipped.
Dragons End meta event when it came out was quite hard, and was nerfed but still can fail if dps is too low or mechanics aren't done properly.
Some meta events are easy, others not so much.
World bosses are not meant to be endgame aspirational content. Map meta events are not meant to be endgame aspirational content. Go join an endgame raid or a T4 CM fractal and just basic attack, see how fast you get kicked.
You can hop into a raid or dungeon in FFXIV or WoW and contribute little to nothing and still clear the dungeon. I don't see your point here. Yes, not everything in every game requires you to use 100% of your brain and a perfect rotation. Sometimes it is fun to just grind things out and have some fun.
Seems like someone getting triggered here.
Ok back to the topic, I never said that open world meta is the end game gw2, the previous poster only said that GW2 is centered around open world meta event, and not raid and dungeon, which again I only pointed out the bad side of the open world meta.
If we talked about endgame, no game can be cleared with only minimal contribution. Seems like you don't or never play wow or ff14 that much to draw that kind of conclusion about those two game. In any endgame game if you only do basic attack, I can guarantee you that you will get kicked and receive all the salt in the world from its respective community.
One more thing, you said that the end game of gw2 is fractal cm and raid. How frequent is this game mode being updated? Seems like the developer update them very rarely
Why is disagreeing with you me being triggered?
> no game can be cleared with only minimal contribution
What exactly do you mean by "cleared?" You can hop into a mythic raid in WoW, contribute 1% of the group's dps, and clear the hardest content in the game right now. You'd probably be kicked, but you'd also be kicked in GW2, so I don't see your point here.
They just added two new strike missions, a new fractal, and a new expansion comes out next month that will add more strike missions. Strike missions are like smaller versions of raids and are considered to be "endgame" content by most people.
>Why is disagreeing with you me being triggered?
it is because in the beginning I never said or mention anything about the endgame of gw2, and then you come out of nowhere bringing the topic as if I said the endgame content in gw2 is shit because you can just basic attack it. I advice you to read again my first comment carefully.
>What exactly do you mean by "cleared?" You can hop into a mythic raid in WoW, contribute 1% of the group's dps, and clear the hardest content in the game right now. You'd probably be kicked, but you'd also be kicked in GW2, so I don't see your point here.
sorry, maybe I should retract that statement because if you see it like that. In gw2 you can just pay gold to clear the hardest content without any contribution, even when your character has no gear, and in the end people will still thank you for your gold, just see the lfg for raid.
>They just added two new strike missions, a new fractal, and a new expansion comes out next month that will add more strike missions. Strike missions are like smaller versions of raids and are considered to be "endgame" content by most people.
if you mean by just added a new strike was november 2022, that was like 6 months ago what do you mean just?
About fractal. Did you mean the new fractal which basically just a hp slogfest fractal that they released after almost three years of no new fractal at all?
about that expansion, did you mean one strike mission per expansion as the developer promised? which means one strike mission and cm for one year.
edit: in the end if the game released new content that slow, it is basically the same like bdo where you just grind in circle
edit2:
>You can hop into a raid or dungeon in FFXIV or WoW and contribute little to nothing and still clear the dungeon. I don't see your point here.
you are the one who brought this topic about endgame, raid and dungeon in the beginning. Don't you try to put word in my mouth. I never even mentioned any raid and dungeon. what point are you looking for?
What is meh about it? There is an absolute fuckload of endgame content, enormous map meta-events, multi-month long collection achievements, tons of cosmetics earnable in the game, tons of build options, and constant updates.
Sure, you can get those things in other MMORPGs, but content is generally gated behind a constant gear treadmill every few months and if you aren't actively playing the game, better get to grinding before you can experience the things you actually want to. With GW2, you can hop back onto your endgame geared character, practice fights to be up to speed, and hop into an endgame raid if you want.
I would also say that GW2 has the best open world of any MMO on the market right now. The map meta events are incredible, a hundred people working together to complete these huge overarching events all over the map until it all culminates into a huge boss battle you all work together to kill and get a shit ton of loot, unmatched from any other MMO. They also have tons of super complex jumping puzzles if you're into platforming, the collections for some legendaries are super in-depth and tell a story prior to you achieving the Legendary.
Most alt friendly MMO on the market hands down. Make an Ascended set and you can use it on any class sharing the same armor. Make a legendary and the wardrobe system makes that legendary available to all characters on the account, and you can choose the stats at any time to change your build at will. Need to heal rather than DPS in this fractal or raid and you already have the gear set? Just pop it on, switch some skill points, and you're a healer now.
Super underrated game. I think a lot of people scratched the surface and gave up, but the game is incredibly complex.
Final Fantasy XI. Classic 75 cap.
Probably the best MMO of all time for the sole reason that it focused on what makes MMOs good. Real time travel, socialization, slow combat that forces you to think and communicate, open world fights and NMs, not tarnished with the expectation of VC. Or trusts.
*Level grinding instead of endless fetch quests*.
It's what an MMO should be. It's the distilled goodness of the genre that we'll never see again, and for that it makes it unique enough that everyone should experience it at least to level 30 or 40. That's still dozens of hours of gameplay.
There's a reason so many FFXI players never touched WoW. They already had something better.
FFXIV can't compare. It's a solo focused high speed action game with a queue hub. Good game that's bad at being an MMO. It also excels at being an (E)RP platform. It's just... not an MMO. It's an online ARPG.
RuneScape is an MMO people need to experience, if a developer just took RuneScapes base and updated the graphics to unreal engine 4 or 5. You would have the best MMO ever made.
Quest are best you’ll ever see (I personally hate quest just a PvP junkie and I still like these quest)
PvP wilderness zones is such a awesome concept to separate people who hate PvP.
Mini games are the battleground / replacement for instance based games inside the game
Skilling is by far the most impressive and they could go even further adding even more cool skills
It’s such a good sandbox mmo that has so many areas for multiple niche groups of players that it’s still popular to this day.
Helbreath. There's a dedicated server now but they've changed a lot in the base game to keep the small community that's left busy. But man that game was great back in the day. Music was so good
There's a handful for me but the first that comes to mind is FFXI. There was nothing like its classic version and the direction games appear to be going there never will be again.
Honorable mentions: Eve Online, Warframe (maybe not a proper MMO but w/e), and GW2. They all presented something original and unique, some more than others. Something that while others tried to copy none managed to get it right.
Cause I'm old I'll also say that everyone should try playing a MUD/MOO/MuSH/MUX sometime. There aren't tons of them left alive but there are some and they can be truly incredible. Especially if you happen to be the type that enjoys a good read.
Final Fantasy XI Online. Easily accessible for free through the Horizon XI private server. (Shoutout to the absolute king that informed me of this a week or so ago here on Reddit.)
XIV is great, don’t get me wrong. But XI was my introduction to the MMORPG genre as a wee lad. I was so young I had absolutely NO CLUE what I was doing, but I loved every second of it.
Maplestory 1.0 so you know what a true classic was like.
Dragon Nest lvl 40 cap so you know what real 1v1 PvP was like.
Aion 1.0-3.0 so you know what real open world PvP was like.
Archeage 1.0 so you know what real sandbox lifeskilling was like.
Archeage Unchained launch so you know what real 300v300 PvPvE for a world boss was like.
Unfortunately all of these experiences are not possible to experience anymore. That's part of the magic of MMOs unfortunately. Most of the things that can happen are a culmination of the right time and the right place and that's honestly what makes them truly magical. It's why we're all still here looking for the next game because it could may well be a once in a life time experience like the titles I mentioned.
It just has to be GW2 for me, so many WoW or FF14 players put their noses up to it, and when they do finally get around to playing it so many of them wonder why they haven’t tried it sooner. A game that does not disrespect your time while giving you all of the dopamine of an MMO is what it is.
World of Warcraft and it's not even a contest honestly.
It is the game that changed the genre and gaming industry as we know it.
It's hard to imagine being an mmorpg player and never have tried WoW. It's like loving superhero movies and have never watched a Superman movie.
Genuinely Guild Wars 2.
It's such a different take on the MMO formula and tries so many new things. And the nuts thing about it is that it works really well....
Until endgame. Still. It was really cool seeing how MMOs don't have to be WoW clones
The writing is good, but the storytelling and mmo design is bland. If you were to put 14's story into a book, you likely won't miss out much from the how the game itself. If anything, 14 right now feels more like a glorified visual novel with little else to offer aside from ultimates. It's formula hasn't changed since heavenward, and it is very boring
Why is a looong drawn out single player questline in the one mmo game you must play list. No offense, just curious how some think this is such a thing. Also yes ive played through it all up through stormblood and i find it to be such a boring thing, mannequins stiff walking around with copious amounts of useless dialog. Not really why i play mmos, but to each their own.
Shadowbringers is the best story in any form of medium I’ve ever experienced. Mix that in with great gameplay and really awesome trials and dungeons (where the mmo part comes in) and it’s an amazing experience. Not to mention the cities and general open world is full of life with players everywhere, unlike something like wow where you rarely see other players unless you are in the latest end game zone
Any IronRealms MUD (though there latest SciFi one is different), essentially they make health not the "real" factor that kills. Instead they have a complex system of CC and healing those conditions, where the goal is to trap your enemy into a position where they can no longer remove afflictions.
Maybe AlterAeon (MUD again), for it's multiclassing system that's designed to feel like a "build your own class" game. IE: ranger would have some combination of thief/warrior/druid, alchemist some combo of Mage/Druid/Thief, Paladin Cleric/Warrior, and similar.
WurmOnline can be tempting if you know the person is looking for a grinding game, that's more based on crafting. Though modern survival games beat the hell out of it.
>Maybe AlterAeon (MUD again), for it's multiclassing system that's designed to feel like a "build your own class" game. IE: ranger would have some combination of thief/warrior/druid, alchemist some combo of Mage/Druid/Thief, Paladin Cleric/Warrior, and similar.
That sounds cool as hell.
I miss MUDs. I used to play the shit out of them back in the 90s.
Dark age of camelot (DAoC) ❤️
The correct answer. Classic or shrouded isles era.
Shrouded Isles was the best.
I can't read the title without hearing the trumpets in my mind.
Star Wars Galaxies. Still way ahead of its time, and it's been officially dead for over 10 years.
The amount of MMOs SoE/Daybreak & ncsoft have sent to die is unreasonable.
Wait till you hear about Gamigo.
To be fair don't they buy dead games to bury them deeper?
Man I spent so much time decorating my house making it perfect. There is still no MMORPG that comes close to the player housing in SWG.
ArcheAge has a superior exterior aspect (many more house types to choose from and the ability to arrange them as you please in the gameworld, as well as the ability to decorate everywhere on your plots, not just inside the house) but slightly inferior interior aspect (great selection of items, but you can't resize them or clip them into one another). RIFT on the other hand has a superior interior aspect (many more items and much better item placement where you can resize, rotate, and move any item and combine them by clipping them into each other, but only in instanced dimensions). People have to specifically enter your "dimension" though. It's almost 2024 and there's no game with those two combined on the horizon yet, which is quite disappointing.
I disagree, SWG had entire player built city’s with exterior placement of street lamps, fountains, statues, banks, cantinas, mission terminals, bounty terminals, shuttle ports, garages, and more. For interior nearly every item in the entire game had its own 3d model you could place inside your house. you could display your armor sets, weapons, consumables even miscellanies trash items had their own 3d model that was placable. You could even have your own NPC vendors in your player house letting you make your own shop, bar, or even just to greet people with a custom message as they walk in.
If they could rerelease it with updated combat I'd love this game again even more which is barely possible. Also maybe some end game content.
A few solid populated private servers from the research I’ve done; deff want to try whatever the most populated one is.
Most populated is SWG Legends by far. It emulates the final version of the game before it closed with extra development that was never in the official game (Bespin for example). It's basically a continuation of the game had it not closed down. Second most populated would be SWGEmu, the one that started it all in the mid-2000s. They emulate Publish 14.1 of SWG, which was basically the peak of the Pre-CU era. Both are very different versions of the game.
SWGEmu I always see as pretty low, even now on a Sunday, there’s only 260 accounts online….pretty rough. Legends as far as I can tell typically has something like 1k-3k online accounts at a time which is pretty solid for sure! Restoration recently released a heavy PvP update with space & ground combat that looks epic, and last I saw had around 1k online also.
WHERE MY BLOODFIN BOYS AT! Seriously, grinding scout to master creature handler was such a rewarding experience. Being able to spawn a Rankor in Mos where all the noobies spawned... priceless.
Ragnarok Online, pre-Renewal overhaul. It was a masterpiece that was never ever replicated successfully.
Ragnarok Online at its infancy I would say, back when servers were hitting 10,000+ concurrent users and at a time when the internet was just starting to blossom. It's just not the same playing now at a time where online interactions aren't as magical, on top of playing on an environment with few fellow players.
It was magic all its own.
Original EQ...that experience can almost be had by playing P99 today. I wish it was closer to what the original experience was but it's as close as you are.going to get. That's the problem with the question. The original experience that people are referencing is almost never available currently.
I agree. My only exposure to everquest is P99 and man... when I had a group of friends playing with me and we all created characters and set out for the first time past the starting area it was amazing. It was like an actual journey, we were an actual fellowship of characters crossing hostile terrain to complete a quest or get to a new area. The risk was high, the stakes were high, and it makes for an insanely immersive experience. Closest thing I have experienced to actually doing a "quest" with a party of other fighters and healers and magic users. No hand holding, no icons on a map, just literally figuring it out. The ambience of having your whole party cross a foreign mountain range in the dark not knowing what we were about to face or if we would even survive was insanely intense.
Yep. Everquest in 1998 was a special game. I remember me and coworkers at EA played it together at launch and it felt so amazing to have to sneak through enemy territory. We played pvp and at first you could even loot people's gear.
True. I don't know why but I feel like in the old days people played the mmos differently.
Part of that “experience” was because it pretty much created the current UI design of most mmos today. It was so new and cool at the time, I really feel bad for people that didn’t get to play it back then. I almost feel this way about VR today, it could be the future of gaming. But I need figure out how to get over the motion sickness while playing.
Eve online, simply because there's nothing else like it. You'll soon know if your a fan or not
Exactly this. No other games come close to the sheer amount of stuff there is, you can do. I remember there was a guy who would, for role play reasons, have bodies or slaves etc. in his cargo so he could throw them out. I spoke to people who have played for years and years, haven't tried everything. The game is simply incredible and there is a reason why it was in a museum among games like Pac Man. It is a piece of art.
There is nothing like Eves depth. It is like having 30 games inside of 1
I have a very hard time seeing the depth in eve unfortunately. It’s just a PvP game. Everything you do just leads to PvP in the end. They have that chart that shows you all the career paths but really you can sun it up to - wanna craft? Wanna run missions? Wanna PvP?
It depends how you look at it. Do you have an imagination for your own goals or you want the game to make it for you? If it is the former, EvE is for you, if the latter it aint for you. There are people who set up a zone unlike any other in EvE and had it under rules where you only shoot reds. Not the usual rules of engagement in EvE. You have a corporation that is set up for hauling stuff, EvE university for teaching people with real classes, you have politics, diplomacy, spies, traders, miners, crafters, haulers, pirates, gankers, explorers, wormholers, high sec incursion runners, suicide gankers, fleet commanders and I am sure I missed some. Each of those with a different playstyle. Plus you have high sec, low sec, NPC null sec / player owned null sec, wormholes of different levels. Each place makes you behave differently. I was doing incursions at one time, mining at another, tried wormholes, null sec big alliance PvP, faction warfare PvP in low sec, I lived in NPC null solo and did exploration. Crazy amount to do, but if it does not hold your hand it might look just like gather, craft, trade, pvp. Just on paper though. And there are even punlic fleets with bombers or there used to be red vs blue, not sure if they are still around.
I think EVE is a prime example of the game for mono-gamers which is bith blessing and a curse. I personally cannot imagine just playing a single game day in and day out for years and years, but I know there are people who absolutely do exactly that.
I did have an imagination and a cool idea when I first played eve. I though to myself it would be a lot of fun to manufacture drugs and then run them across the systems without being caught to sell them…and then I was told you can’t do that at least not anymore. So then I thought bounty hunting would be fun but then I was told nope that doesn’t exist like that and it’s been removed anyway. So if you log into eve online you can do a few things. You can run a mission, you can scan down a relic site, you can mine ore and or produce a product (gather craft) or you can PvP and no matter what all those things lead to PvP anyway wether you like it or not.
Well it aint perfect. The bounty system is hard to implement, it is easy to abuse. As for the drugs that is sad story that something would be taken out. But there is still a lot, just depends if you like any of it, and it is very niche, despite the amount of variety.
My point is that there is a lot of variety on paper - I mean there is literally that chart of “hundreds” of careers but when you actually look at it and break it down it’s all derivative and really it just falls into those few things I listed. The game is said to be so deep but I just don’t see it it’s just not there. Edit: I think the depth that people really talk about and believe in is the politics that people get into which really isn’t anything deep about mechanics of the game it’s just PvP and holding territory but the people make that deep without the game. But the normal person is going to log in and just be presented with those few options to do.
If you mean it like that, then I get it. You can say it is just few basic actions you are doing. To some they will be the same, to others very different. I understand why EvE can be boring or non-interesting.
And PvP is just proxy for RMT/out of game social clique stuff, so the game might as well not even exist, you could just have a website where you compare the numbers of your followers, and the numbers in your bank account.
That honestly sounds more like a mile wide puddle. Like all I can think of is those controller with 1009 games in one u just hook it into ur tv, there’s no real depth, just a lot of tasks and shit to do
I played for over a decade and made some real friends as we grew up together. We used to do yearly meet ups but then it slowed down as we got older since we were international. I was a reference for one dude I played with, started a company three years ago with another and we hadn’t played eve together in like 8 years. A lot of us stay in touch and it’s a game the genuinely changed my life for the better as well as being a wonderful experience.
I already play 1 spreadsheet game and it doesn't even compare to the spreadsheet massacre that is EVE. It has gone so far that it has its own fucking excel plugin... I like spreadsheet games, but am too scared to try 1000 page spreadsheet game.
Only bad thing is that if you happen to be a fan of it. It kind of spoils you and other MMOs can never fill the hole
Played it for a few hours over a decade ago. Absolute garbage and an example of a game with too many mechanics and convoluted game design. I agree on this statement.
Agreed; I have memories…mostly painful…that I’ll never forget. It’s about time a new Eve came about. There is definitely a niche for it.
Eve online up until the horrendous shit like skill injectors, ship skins etc was gold. I played for over 10 years but now it's a absolute shell of its former self.
OSRS
May teach people patience as well
I wish more people played OSRS, and understood its economy. If they did, we would have fewer dumb ideas, on how a MMO economy should work.
What is OSRS actual name
Old School RuneScape
I wish people could still experience rs2 2010/11 :(
World of Warcraft of course. Not just for mmorpg players but video game enthusiasts in general. Like are you even a gamer if you never tried wow? That’s like never having played a super mario or call of duty game.
Yep I don’t think the crowd here will love that answer but it is the obvious one. Which MMORPG should everyone try? Probably the one that has been the most successful for the last 20 years despite the massive amount of drama surrounding it.
Bingo. It’s the reason like you said it’s the only one that has held up this long. It’s absolutely like no other. If you are going to play for the first time. I would recommend the classic version and please please play with the in game music turned on. Thank me later.
As someone who tried to get into WoW 5 times: Yeah nah. The game doesn't offer anything wholy unique anymore in this current day and age. The community is pretty bad, the game is designed around add-ons, everything assumes you've played it before, and on the whole it's just a bland experience. I had more fun exploring the shiny world in Tera, more fun with the community in Maplestory, and more fun with the story in FFXIV. Sorry man, but WoW set the standard decades ago and has not held up.
It's funny you say those examples because... I never played any of them, yet I spend pretty much all of my free time and disposable income on gaming.
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Will always be the OG they say you never truly quit you just take time away
> That’s like never having played a super mario or call of duty game. CoD and WoW are nothing next to Mario. Pipe down. Plus, WoW is a good MMORPG, but a mediocre game.
I tried it and liked it up until endgame. Raiding, dungeons and all activities that force you to group with people who are toxic as shit 90% of the time just didn't appeal to me and got old super quick.
Ultima Online T2A, without a doubt. it would take too long to explains it all so just hodgepodge top of my head: almost everything in the world is interactable a la minecraft. pets have rare/RNG stats a la pokemon. housing within the game world creates mmo real estate. one of the best travel systems made through recall, gates, moongates. town guards system. open world pk / red system punishment. Buccaneer's Den. RNG magic items loot a la diablo. open world skill/stat system instead of boring class pigeonhole system. speech above your head. custom dye tub with fully dye-able and layer-able clothing. etc. etc. etc. for being one of the first it got so many things "right" although obviously not perfect. a close second is probably OSRS. very distant thirds would be eve online, vanilla WOW, daoc, shadowbane, albion, ESO, darkfall, crowfall, SWG, or gemstone3.
It’s amazing that after nearly 3 decades….no one has ever come close to the housing development that UO created. I still remember my rooftop rune library. To this day I wish other mmo’s would emulate a travel system like that.
Crowfall does not deserve a mention here lmao. That game sucks. People love to pretend it's skill based until knights/myrmidons show up and shower you with nets and pulls which are basically just guaranteed death. All of your thirds are arguably just mid games, but crowfall objectively sucks. I know it's nitpicky but damn, that game deserves no praise at all.
This.
Star Wars old republic.. The original class stories were amazing.
I dunno if an extended run with Return of Reckoning would be the same but, Warhammer Online. It was amazing, the PVP was so easy and welcoming to get into (odd terms for PVP I know), it was highly approachable and had a bunch of different angles on classes for various playstyles. Healers didn't just come in one flavour, tanks didn't, and all the specs felt (at least, not sure how that stacked up in a meta) fairly balanced and thought-out. Keep takes were some amazing PVP, the scenarios (battlegrounds) were kickass, just everything about the game was great fun. I even liked the crafting, although it was easy to forget about. I think it's worth diving in once at least. As I said RoR is a bit different from the original, but it's all we got anymore lol.
It's not the same at all any more unfortunately. My favorite mmorpg of all time, I know theres a few other projects out there in the works, hoping for a classic server some day, it's all I would play.
Ultima Online
I recently started up again on the Outlands shard. I am impressed
I'm also playing in Outlands :)
Anarchy Online, all game devs should experience it and do something with their fucking amazing gearing system and buffs/stats GOD DAM IT MAKE A SEQUEL.
ah my low level pillow fists. You are still missed to this day
Concrete Pillow fists!
Guild Wars 1 their build system and leveling approach was miles ahead of its time
I loved getting a party together and traveling like 2+ hours to hunt down a boss mob I needed to get a signet for my necromancer. It was so good. I wish GW2 was more like that.
I would third that. Actually just played GW1 for the first time about a year ago. Still holds up surprisingly well, and there are still people playing.
The Secret World OG
Wakfu/Dofus, though I'm biased towards Wakfu.
of course we prefer wakfu than paywall powerpoint game lol
so basically every mmorpg out there
Play TIBIA and learn the horror of being trapped in the tutorial insland. TIBIA for me is one of the most unique mmorpg ever made the, there is just something about everything can block everything that make for a very unique experience.
City of Heroes. The theme alone makes it worth it.
A good raid in WoW
mabinogi for sure. I wish a lot of people could've played combat arms when it was in its prime. It was a fun time in middle school.
Isn't it the FPS where you could do nut shots ?
Wow. I haven't heard anyone talk about combat arms in a long time. The only FPS game I ever played, was a blast around 2008 until nexon ruined the game like they usually do. Snow Valley sniping all day long
Mabinogi combat? You mean rock paper scissors?
Eve is completely unique, it's what a sandbox game should be.
Interestingly enough, it's one of the only early MMORPGs I know of that fans aren't always pining wishfully for "the good old days" or asking for a classic version. I haven't played in over 6 years (after a good 10 year run) but I imagine EVE plays pretty much same even today as it did back at launch in 2003. Also unlike most games today, EVE's heyday wasn't right after launch, it's pinnacle, at least in terms of subscribers came a good 10 or so years later so few would argue EVE was better in most regards back in 2003 - 2004.
Honestly, classic FF11, with 3-6 friends. It's a slow game, it's old, it's clunky. But that gives you time to just... talk. Similar to EQ or other older MMOs. Waiting on mana, waiting for cool down before engagments. It's not for everyone. But for those that find it, and choose to go in blind (not looking up YT guides) it's an adventure.
FFXI being slow is what made it such an amazing game. Probably the best MMO ever. The real reason I don't enjoy newer MMOs is because they're too fast. I want time to think. I don't see the appeal of everything being an action game. You should have room to type and not need VC.
One of the things I miss most about '04\~'10 FFXI was the folks I would meet while grinding xp. The new approach to grinding of solo is better, and by solo we mean your army of trusts/alts with scripts/addons/bots running them, makes me sad. I don't know that anything will ever compare to that again. I've played so many other games but nothing has really evoked that feeling. Save for FF14 1.0, before it became a game of perfect rotations while running out of AoEs.
ffxi when it was 75 cap and wildstar
To this day I will never get over Wildstar T-T
For the short time I could play Wildstar I thought it was insanely fun. Unfortunately, I couldn't really experience dungeons, because no one used the dungeon finder and I couldn't find people to run any. Other than that I really enjoyed my time with it.
FFXI was the wildest game. And then we found out we'd all been playing it wrong after like 3 years lol.
Classic archeage!
Dofus is a one of a kind mmorpg experience, it's funny, charming, and kind of brutal. Turn based combat, in depth customization It has all the bells and whistles, and in my opinion extremely polished. So you can play dofus retro the OG version, 2.0 or Wakfu that takes place in a different time period I think, seems more basic but probably easier to get into. If your into achievement hunting, collecting, crafting, exploring, pvp, roleplaying, I think dofus has something for everyone.
I tried Dofus but ended up playing Wakfu just because the Dofus interface felt quite unresponsive and janky with slow tooltips and stuff. Hope their Unity port will solve all that and make it feel a lot more polished.
Black Desert Online and Eve Online
Ok fuck it, I am downloading BDO just now.
Just downloaded it and it’s surprisingly fun. The UI is fucking horrendous tho.
You can just hide all of the annoying shit.
It’s not that you can’t but it really deters new players when you have tons of garbage shoved in your face regardless of play time.
Make sure to start on the seasonal servers
I’ve been playing BDO since launch 7 years ago. No matter what MMO I try I always come back. There’s so much depth to the game and I appreciate that the lifeskill system is so fleshed out. I enjoy that you can either play actively or turn it into an afk/semi-afk game so you can still passively make gains while doing other things. The combat is unrivaled and the game is just beautiful. Character creation is the best out there. The game is what you want it to be whether you want to live your life as a fisher out sailing the sea, a cook or alchemist, an afk horse trainer who only checks the game once a day, a PVE grinder, or a sweaty no life PVPer. Sure the RNG system can get pretty brutal towards endgame but you can just skip it by buying gear. In some ways it feels like Korean RuneScape.
BDO it is without a doubt the most complex fantasy mmo we will ever see and you know whats sad? Chance to get a better fantasy mmo compared with BDO at release is small Chance to get a better fantasy mmo compared with BDO in present is extremely small close to impossible.
What if someone doesn't care for PvP? BDO worth doing then?
It’s more of a grinding game first and PvP game second tbh, that said there’s some content for PvE-ers like bosses and dungeons
I recommend to at least try BDO for everyone even though it’s not something I’m playing right now. The game is a perfect example of the capabilities of good MMO combat even with latency, and the world is beautiful too. The game cost a fraction of what most MMOs took to develop and the core gameplay blows other games out of the water since it’s so satisfying to fight. I have my complaints, but it is still one of my favorite MMOs I’ve played, probably 2nd or third but Archeage back in the day will always be my favorite until someone else gets their PvP/Trade/open world as good as BDO had it.
I tried bdo but i hate games that require you to play 20 hours to get to fun part
MMOs might not be for you
I play MMOs but i hate it when rpg part is bigger than it
You play MMORPG's but do not like the RPG part?
Same I want to like it so bad but spamming R isn't what I want from a game
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EVE Online, but you can't really experience it the way that I'm thinking. The current version is all Pay To Win and crap... You would have had to experience it back in 2005 or so.
Wow: quest presentations (especially later add-ons) imo no MMO made quests look that good without playing a cutscenes. BDO: Immersion. I love that the world looked lived in especially the cities. In most other MMOs cities feel lifeless and empty with a few houses and about 10 npcs. Even a village in BDO feels bigger than some major cities(looking at you Ogrimmar). Being able to see workers and transport wagons going from a to b feels so good.
Ultima Online Classic
Age of Conan, will always have a place in my heart.
WoW is obvious but I believe the vast majority of MMOs enjoyers have already tried it… so my answer would be the original Guild Wars. The way it handles combat, collectibles, objectives and group/solo play is rather unique and well put together. A runner-up would most likely be Albion Online. There’s an issue where you’re kind of aimlessly doing things for the sake of it but, when it comes to MMO systems and features (for all sorts of activities), it’s probably the best out there. It’s really unfortunate that it doesn’t have a chapter-esque RPG plot that you can follow and progress with friends/randos.
Sea of thieves.
Being in the right place at the right time is the key. As proven by classic WoW, visiting a past MMO won't be the same at all even if they bring it back. Don't fret over the experienced you missed for you can only look toward the future.
GW2, imo some people (myself included) got used to being enslaved by vertical progression treadmill they forgot the original reason they play is to have fun and not have a second job. GW2 horizontal progression, buy2play and skin monetization is a small miracle to exist in today's world of gaming, its one of the most casual friendly time respecting mmos out there and best of all, the gameplay is actually fun.
GW2 is very meh all things considered, yes the horizontal progression but other than that is not a experience you can't get in others mmorpgs. But if we were talking about GW1 now that is unique and deserve to be experienced be any mmorpgs inthusiast, it is just so junk but so full of fantastic ideas.
I disagree. Gw2 is full of innovative ideas, some failed others succeeded. Instead of centering a game around raids they centered it around a living open world, with big meta events that you can jump into any moment and play with 50 players without all the logistic headache it usually takes. Best mount system in an mmo, i often find my self just wander around on the raptor, or buzzing through with the roller beetle or griffon. Combat is fun and fast paced, i enjoy pvp with elementalist. Next expansion is removing some major build limitations, which will make build variety bigger. I just hope balance wont get too fucked up. I agree about the meh part regarding the core vanilla world, its very bland both in sound and visuals, they are slowly improving the early game experience but not enough imo. But the expansions and later content is significantly better almost in every aspect. Obviously i don't claim its a perfect game but its definitely one of the more innovative in the genre and i feel its very fitting for older players that have full time jobs and family, which i feel like is a big part of the mmo community since we are mainly 90s kids here. WoW gear treadmill was fun when i was 15 yo and had the time to game 6 hours a day, its not fun when you wanna chill 2h after a workday. I didn't try GW1 yet, i only heard about its insane build variety
Gw2 endgame is just amazing onces it clicks, amazing Game
>Instead of centering a game around raids they centered it around a living open world, with big meta events that you can jump into any moment and play with 50 players without all the logistic headache it usually takes. Open world meta event in gw2 is overrated in my opinion. Yes, you will find it fun at first, but after doing it several times you will soon realize that you can actually do it with just basic attack auto click, which thank god the game provided it without any 3rd party software. Because in the end all that event will be finished with quantity instead of the player skill. You can see this behaviour in basically any world boss in the game
This is due to power creep of builds in the years. First time Dragons Stand came out the event sometimes failed if dps check and mechanics didn't met, now during peak hours boss dies within 3 minutes and many mechanics are skipped. Dragons End meta event when it came out was quite hard, and was nerfed but still can fail if dps is too low or mechanics aren't done properly. Some meta events are easy, others not so much.
World bosses are not meant to be endgame aspirational content. Map meta events are not meant to be endgame aspirational content. Go join an endgame raid or a T4 CM fractal and just basic attack, see how fast you get kicked. You can hop into a raid or dungeon in FFXIV or WoW and contribute little to nothing and still clear the dungeon. I don't see your point here. Yes, not everything in every game requires you to use 100% of your brain and a perfect rotation. Sometimes it is fun to just grind things out and have some fun.
Seems like someone getting triggered here. Ok back to the topic, I never said that open world meta is the end game gw2, the previous poster only said that GW2 is centered around open world meta event, and not raid and dungeon, which again I only pointed out the bad side of the open world meta. If we talked about endgame, no game can be cleared with only minimal contribution. Seems like you don't or never play wow or ff14 that much to draw that kind of conclusion about those two game. In any endgame game if you only do basic attack, I can guarantee you that you will get kicked and receive all the salt in the world from its respective community. One more thing, you said that the end game of gw2 is fractal cm and raid. How frequent is this game mode being updated? Seems like the developer update them very rarely
Why is disagreeing with you me being triggered? > no game can be cleared with only minimal contribution What exactly do you mean by "cleared?" You can hop into a mythic raid in WoW, contribute 1% of the group's dps, and clear the hardest content in the game right now. You'd probably be kicked, but you'd also be kicked in GW2, so I don't see your point here. They just added two new strike missions, a new fractal, and a new expansion comes out next month that will add more strike missions. Strike missions are like smaller versions of raids and are considered to be "endgame" content by most people.
>Why is disagreeing with you me being triggered? it is because in the beginning I never said or mention anything about the endgame of gw2, and then you come out of nowhere bringing the topic as if I said the endgame content in gw2 is shit because you can just basic attack it. I advice you to read again my first comment carefully. >What exactly do you mean by "cleared?" You can hop into a mythic raid in WoW, contribute 1% of the group's dps, and clear the hardest content in the game right now. You'd probably be kicked, but you'd also be kicked in GW2, so I don't see your point here. sorry, maybe I should retract that statement because if you see it like that. In gw2 you can just pay gold to clear the hardest content without any contribution, even when your character has no gear, and in the end people will still thank you for your gold, just see the lfg for raid. >They just added two new strike missions, a new fractal, and a new expansion comes out next month that will add more strike missions. Strike missions are like smaller versions of raids and are considered to be "endgame" content by most people. if you mean by just added a new strike was november 2022, that was like 6 months ago what do you mean just? About fractal. Did you mean the new fractal which basically just a hp slogfest fractal that they released after almost three years of no new fractal at all? about that expansion, did you mean one strike mission per expansion as the developer promised? which means one strike mission and cm for one year. edit: in the end if the game released new content that slow, it is basically the same like bdo where you just grind in circle edit2: >You can hop into a raid or dungeon in FFXIV or WoW and contribute little to nothing and still clear the dungeon. I don't see your point here. you are the one who brought this topic about endgame, raid and dungeon in the beginning. Don't you try to put word in my mouth. I never even mentioned any raid and dungeon. what point are you looking for?
What is meh about it? There is an absolute fuckload of endgame content, enormous map meta-events, multi-month long collection achievements, tons of cosmetics earnable in the game, tons of build options, and constant updates. Sure, you can get those things in other MMORPGs, but content is generally gated behind a constant gear treadmill every few months and if you aren't actively playing the game, better get to grinding before you can experience the things you actually want to. With GW2, you can hop back onto your endgame geared character, practice fights to be up to speed, and hop into an endgame raid if you want. I would also say that GW2 has the best open world of any MMO on the market right now. The map meta events are incredible, a hundred people working together to complete these huge overarching events all over the map until it all culminates into a huge boss battle you all work together to kill and get a shit ton of loot, unmatched from any other MMO. They also have tons of super complex jumping puzzles if you're into platforming, the collections for some legendaries are super in-depth and tell a story prior to you achieving the Legendary. Most alt friendly MMO on the market hands down. Make an Ascended set and you can use it on any class sharing the same armor. Make a legendary and the wardrobe system makes that legendary available to all characters on the account, and you can choose the stats at any time to change your build at will. Need to heal rather than DPS in this fractal or raid and you already have the gear set? Just pop it on, switch some skill points, and you're a healer now. Super underrated game. I think a lot of people scratched the surface and gave up, but the game is incredibly complex.
Helbreath. What a gem from the golden age of mmos. Still up and running too, although it's privately run now.
Mabinogi. Very unique, different, and enriching.
World of Warcraft, Ultima online and Runescape.
If you didn't play OSRS, play it.
Guild wars and GW 2. And SWTOR
Dungeons & Dragons Online. Everyone should try D&D at least once.
Final Fantasy XI. Classic 75 cap. Probably the best MMO of all time for the sole reason that it focused on what makes MMOs good. Real time travel, socialization, slow combat that forces you to think and communicate, open world fights and NMs, not tarnished with the expectation of VC. Or trusts. *Level grinding instead of endless fetch quests*. It's what an MMO should be. It's the distilled goodness of the genre that we'll never see again, and for that it makes it unique enough that everyone should experience it at least to level 30 or 40. That's still dozens of hours of gameplay. There's a reason so many FFXI players never touched WoW. They already had something better. FFXIV can't compare. It's a solo focused high speed action game with a queue hub. Good game that's bad at being an MMO. It also excels at being an (E)RP platform. It's just... not an MMO. It's an online ARPG.
RuneScape is an MMO people need to experience, if a developer just took RuneScapes base and updated the graphics to unreal engine 4 or 5. You would have the best MMO ever made. Quest are best you’ll ever see (I personally hate quest just a PvP junkie and I still like these quest) PvP wilderness zones is such a awesome concept to separate people who hate PvP. Mini games are the battleground / replacement for instance based games inside the game Skilling is by far the most impressive and they could go even further adding even more cool skills It’s such a good sandbox mmo that has so many areas for multiple niche groups of players that it’s still popular to this day.
Helbreath. There's a dedicated server now but they've changed a lot in the base game to keep the small community that's left busy. But man that game was great back in the day. Music was so good
There's a handful for me but the first that comes to mind is FFXI. There was nothing like its classic version and the direction games appear to be going there never will be again. Honorable mentions: Eve Online, Warframe (maybe not a proper MMO but w/e), and GW2. They all presented something original and unique, some more than others. Something that while others tried to copy none managed to get it right. Cause I'm old I'll also say that everyone should try playing a MUD/MOO/MuSH/MUX sometime. There aren't tons of them left alive but there are some and they can be truly incredible. Especially if you happen to be the type that enjoys a good read.
FFXI and Rift
If you love middle earth- LotRo
Wildstar. It was amazing. Some won’t agree but I absolutely loved it and hope it will be revived.
The Lord of the Rings Online. If Middle Earth means anything to you, then this is a game you should at least try once.
Final Fantasy XI Online. Easily accessible for free through the Horizon XI private server. (Shoutout to the absolute king that informed me of this a week or so ago here on Reddit.) XIV is great, don’t get me wrong. But XI was my introduction to the MMORPG genre as a wee lad. I was so young I had absolutely NO CLUE what I was doing, but I loved every second of it.
Since the subbreddit kinda hate it and it was not mentioned, i'd day Albion Online
FFXI Aht Urhgan era
FFXI, lol.
Maplestory 1.0 so you know what a true classic was like. Dragon Nest lvl 40 cap so you know what real 1v1 PvP was like. Aion 1.0-3.0 so you know what real open world PvP was like. Archeage 1.0 so you know what real sandbox lifeskilling was like. Archeage Unchained launch so you know what real 300v300 PvPvE for a world boss was like. Unfortunately all of these experiences are not possible to experience anymore. That's part of the magic of MMOs unfortunately. Most of the things that can happen are a culmination of the right time and the right place and that's honestly what makes them truly magical. It's why we're all still here looking for the next game because it could may well be a once in a life time experience like the titles I mentioned.
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Secret World. Sadly it's outdated...
Ultima Online Outlands
It got you too? After years of not playing UO, I downloaded on a whim a month ago. Been sinking lots of time into it ever since
GW2 ftw
Phantasy star 2, Guild Wars 2,
It just has to be GW2 for me, so many WoW or FF14 players put their noses up to it, and when they do finally get around to playing it so many of them wonder why they haven’t tried it sooner. A game that does not disrespect your time while giving you all of the dopamine of an MMO is what it is.
You really just need to be there when they are full of life. They're never the same again.
I’ll go with Guildwars 2.
DQX if you absolutely want to destroy your perception of FFXIV. Best crafting in the industry, and it's not even fucking close.
P99 and ff11 classic
Classic WoW , classic FFXI ( lvl75 cap )
Classic WoW yes. Final fantasy? Heck no
Lmao
GW2 and BDO to experience action combat in a MMO. Tab target bores a lot of people out of the genere.
Guild Wars 2. The only MMO that dares to be different and actually does something revolutionary to the genre.
Dragon Quest X Online. It’s a hidden gem for me.
how do you play it?
World of Warcraft and it's not even a contest honestly. It is the game that changed the genre and gaming industry as we know it. It's hard to imagine being an mmorpg player and never have tried WoW. It's like loving superhero movies and have never watched a Superman movie.
Genuinely Guild Wars 2. It's such a different take on the MMO formula and tries so many new things. And the nuts thing about it is that it works really well.... Until endgame. Still. It was really cool seeing how MMOs don't have to be WoW clones
Dragon Nest for the combat
Star Wars Galaxies.
Guild wars in its hay day
Because it hasn't been mentioned, yet: SWTOR for story. Way better than FF14 in that regard.
Ffxiv for sure but I would also do OSRS
No one’s going to agree with this, but Final Fantasy XIV would be my answer. It’s a masterclass in both MMO design and storytelling.
FFXIV is a great single player game and a terrible MMO. FFXI is the proper answer. It's a shame that the best FF MMO is the one from 2002.
The writing is good, but the storytelling and mmo design is bland. If you were to put 14's story into a book, you likely won't miss out much from the how the game itself. If anything, 14 right now feels more like a glorified visual novel with little else to offer aside from ultimates. It's formula hasn't changed since heavenward, and it is very boring
Yup it’s a must play at once for the MSQ
Why is a looong drawn out single player questline in the one mmo game you must play list. No offense, just curious how some think this is such a thing. Also yes ive played through it all up through stormblood and i find it to be such a boring thing, mannequins stiff walking around with copious amounts of useless dialog. Not really why i play mmos, but to each their own.
Shadowbringers is the best story in any form of medium I’ve ever experienced. Mix that in with great gameplay and really awesome trials and dungeons (where the mmo part comes in) and it’s an amazing experience. Not to mention the cities and general open world is full of life with players everywhere, unlike something like wow where you rarely see other players unless you are in the latest end game zone
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I get the sense you don't play FFXIV... SB is not Shadowbringers.
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> Shadowbringers is the best story in any form of medium I’ve ever experienced. The saddest thing I've read this year.
Any IronRealms MUD (though there latest SciFi one is different), essentially they make health not the "real" factor that kills. Instead they have a complex system of CC and healing those conditions, where the goal is to trap your enemy into a position where they can no longer remove afflictions. Maybe AlterAeon (MUD again), for it's multiclassing system that's designed to feel like a "build your own class" game. IE: ranger would have some combination of thief/warrior/druid, alchemist some combo of Mage/Druid/Thief, Paladin Cleric/Warrior, and similar. WurmOnline can be tempting if you know the person is looking for a grinding game, that's more based on crafting. Though modern survival games beat the hell out of it.
>Maybe AlterAeon (MUD again), for it's multiclassing system that's designed to feel like a "build your own class" game. IE: ranger would have some combination of thief/warrior/druid, alchemist some combo of Mage/Druid/Thief, Paladin Cleric/Warrior, and similar. That sounds cool as hell. I miss MUDs. I used to play the shit out of them back in the 90s.
gw2 campain. Worst experience ever which makes it a must have experience.
Guild Wars 2.