Tuesday, March 9, 2010

A Perfect Storm?

If bugs weren’t an issue and amount of people weren’t playing a specific MMO what would you play? What I’m saying is that the game ran smoothly and the perfect amounts of people played, both factions, side’s realms, what have you were balanced; the perfect storm for a MMO if you will. You can’t change any game mechanics though, the game is what it is, and it just runs perfect.

Personally I think I would pick Warhammer Online. I loved the class mechanics in that game and how the PvP was suppose to work. Sure it didn’t pan out but I’m going to side with Mythic on this one, a lot of their ideas were good. The problem is that they never factored in how their players would react to certain game features. The PvE was really fun too, just very buggy. Public Quests were an excellent way for fast EXP and gear and got you in a battle instantly. If Mythic had been able to stop the destruction of their bugs earlier in the games life and planned out ways to balance the realms better I know for a fact I would still be playing WAR. The problem is the realms are still unbalanced and the game still has serious technical issues.

Second place is a hard one for me. I’m inclined to say Age of Conan but I didn’t play the game long enough to really get a feel for if the great content was there. AoC’s first 20 levels was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a MMO and by far the best tutorial. I just didn’t get a chance to find out if it could have been great because of the amount of technical bugs at launch.

I think I’m going to have to go with EVE. The thing is I’ve never played EVE, I just love the idea of EVE. Well okay I played EVE’s trial one time and couldn’t understand how the game worked. I got lost, and getting lost in space is rather overwhelming. Given my current lull in gaming I’ve been thinking about EVE a lot more. I have seen more and more press about it and it feels like the game is starting to pick up a lot of well earned attention given its length of time running.

I’m also considering Dungeons and Dragons Online, which admittedly I know NOTHING about. I will let you know tomorrow what I download and try.

6 comments:

  1. I agree with you on WAR, closed/open beta in tier 1 was awesome with scenarios popping, RVR zones full, public quests forcing groups to form and help each other. By tier 2 the magic just died and my PC couldnt handle anything more than 20v20 on a keep siege. I remember the tome of knowledge was excellent too.

    EVE is the best MMO I will never play again. I just can't justify the time required to become proficient/wealthy enough to enjoy it to its fullest. Strangely it is better to think about EVE than actually play it.

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  2. I'd play DAoC. It was my first MMO and to this day I think has the best PvP for me. The 3 realms all fighting each other was awesome. When 1 realm was too dominate, unofficial alliances were formed by enemy alliances to take down the leader in power.

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  3. WOAH! DAoC down to about 1/5 of their subscriber base from when they started out with back in 2002. About 50,000 estimated subs. Thank you Wikipedia.

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  4. @Cassano
    I think I feel the same way with EVE. It is a game I want to play, but probably wouldn't enjoy playing. As anyone who loves the MMO genre what EVE has done is amazing.

    DAoC was a good game. It had alot of things going for it and I remember it foundly. I only played for maybe 6 months because I ended up going back to EQ1.

    If WAR would have just taken the DAoC model, upgraded the graphics and been done with it the game would have been alot better.

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  5. The problem I always have with EVE is that I feel so disconnected from my character. You have no direct control over your ship. Everything is done through right-clicking and hunting through menus. On top of that, you never see your character (except a portrait) and your ship changes throughout play. This means there is never an on-screen representation that you feel a strong link to.

    EVE has so many great ideas, I just wish they were implemented in different ways. This being said, I absolutely love their server structure. Having everyone play in one world is amazing.

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  6. My dream MMO is a Gears of War style control set for your character in the WAR 40K universe with ship to ship combat that is fun.

    Blizzard please make it!

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