Gaming What MMORPG is the best?

[Guest AzureMidnight]

I've heard it all about these,an I've played Guild wars,which I think is great due to it's graphics and easy-to-learn gameplay style.The fact that it's free was goo also.But, i'm curious of other's opions on the subeject..so feel free todebate this..:animeswea

[Vigilance]

Well it depends on what MMORPG your currently playing right now. Other than Guild Wars, there is World of Warcraft, which is a good MMORPG to play right now. I don't play WoW alot, but I think you might like it. Other MMORPG that you can play for free is Maple Story, Flyff,and Corum. I perfer Flyff because that MMORPG is also free to play and it is a fun game to play. The graphic in Flyff is good and sometime it gets a little tough to beat high level monster. Music in Flyff is decent with the sound effect too. Gameplay is fun until level 15, thats when the really fun stuff is happening because at level 15 you get to choose your first job and depending on what job you choose you get different skills. They have only four jobs to choose from: Mercenary, Magician, Assist, and Acrobat. After you reach a certain level with the job you choose from, you get to choose two more jobs to choose from. If you considered playing Flyff, then I'll be happy to help you out with stuff that you need help with. Ok, if you are going to play Flyff, play in the Kern server and play in the 6-1 server, thats where I'll be. My character name is Ajisaka Level 26 Assist and I'll be happy to help anyone out (And if you already playing Flyff and is playing in the Kern server, don't ask me for money because I am totally broke from spending too much Penya, Penya mean money in Flyff if you never play it before). So I hope I get to meet new people in Flyff so that we can party up. If you ever play in the Kern server Whisper me or add me to a party.

[Endymion]

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="DarkSlateBlue"]MMORPGs...the bane of my High School career. I started playing [B]Everquest [/B]back in 11th grade (showing my age here) when the Kunark expansion was first released. The game at that time was simply amazing. As great as it was, the following expansion was nice, but gameplay started to go downhill from there. I forgot what the expansion was called...when the opened up the moon and those ridiculous cat people (Kerrans or something or other), it pretty much made wizards' and druids' teleportation spells useless. I endured, or tried to, with the remnants of my guild (there'd been some guild mergers when I went off to bootcamp) and key members, dear friends of mine ingame who weren't happy about left. What finally put the nail in the coffin for my Everquest run was when they allowed halflings to become rangers, which in my time was only for wood elves, half-breeds and humans. Right after that patch, I see a level 53 halfer ranger with [I]both [/I]of his epics. Bless Tunare (the deity of nature), but that was the last straw.

My friend that had gotten me into EQ, after our falling out with Verant...well Sony at that point in time, got me into [B]Anarchy Online[/B]. Sci-fi MMORPG?! Sweet. Constant pvp action, single player/group generated instances. Fun indeed. Never fell into a group of companions that were like my guild in EQ. Not that I was looking for the same feel, but it'd be nice.

Following AO? [B] Dark Age of Camelot[/B]. It wasn't too bad. Played an elf ranger. Insert nerf stick. Done. I had fun playing it, but after the nerf - pvp was disasterland for rangers.

Then came [B]GuildWars[/B]. Quite different from what Everquest was, but it definitely likeable, both playing and in the wallet category (free woo hoo!). I still play once in awhile, but was never able to immerse myself in the world enough for longevity of playing.

The final game I played was [B]World of Warcraft[/B]. Most definitely fun. Graphics, gameplay, based in the strategy game universe that I loved dearly...definitely awesome. My first character was an orc warrior. He lost his luster around level 20 or so. Not exactly sure why there were only a couple role-playing servers out of the multiple that were there (there were only a dozen or so when I first started, I guess theres many more than that now). Why play an rpg and not roleplay /shrug. After throwing my orc warrior on the backburner, I created an undead mage. Horde-side on Silver Hand, back in my day, I was one of maybe a half dozen frost-focused mages on the server (this was way well before whatever that magma high-end instance was called came out). The guild I was in was great as well. Immersed in rp, as was my character. The intances (now considered old world) were really great at any level area, my favorite though lied with the ones in the Plaguelands. Got a new job so I couldn't really devote myself to the game as much and eventually lost interest, but kept in contact with a few people. Returned after the release of the expansion going to Draenor ( or at least the remnants of it...the Shattered Lands if I remember correctly ). I put my 60(which was the highest level back in my day) frost mage joy on the back burner and created a blood elf paladin. Very fun to play especially with the background of the race and with others likeminded in RP. I leveled my mage fast, but with this character - knowing where to go and all, leveled even faster. I was able to visit my favorite old world instances a few times, much to my enjoyment, but everyone was busy pretty much powerleveling, getting 'phat lewtz', and pvping for honor/honor gear to care really about them. Hitting 65 and exploring some of the shattered lands with my mana wyrm pet, I finally got burnt out (doing that, working as a volunteer firefighter, and still working at the newspaper that I had gotten a job at previously). I finally hung up my sword and shield.

I'd have to say, with all of the games, I've had really great experiences and memorys with some great people. I'd have to say pre-velious everquest was the best, followed closely by my times as an undead mage and blood elf paladin ( Horde ftw...everyone and there mom was a night elf or gnome lolz ). [/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Semjaza]

Guild Wars was quite awesome when it came out and I don't think you can underestimate the appeal of free online play... but I re-installed it last month and I was just amazed by how dated and uninteresting it seemed. GW is really MMORPG-Lite in so many ways. From character customization, to actual ability usage, to challenge. Really, it barely fits into the MMORPG genre to begin with in many ways since every single area outside of hub towns (which could basically just be called a lobby since they offer little of importance beyond a clear meeting place) is instanced. Instances are generally very small components in other MMORPGs.

That's a tangent, I apologize.

There's been a couple of threads on MMORPGs similar in nature to this recently. They mostly concerned themselves with upcoming MMORPGs and there's a few of those that look pretty interesting.

Currently, I've tried several on the market now. Several free and free beta ones have come and gone (particularly Korean ones), but I always find myself completely turned off by them within 15 minutes for one reason or another.

Guild Wars, as I mentioned early, is completely drained of its appeal for me.

Tabula Rasa was a good concept, but it hasn't been capitalized on yet. There's been some decent updates since its release, but it has a long, long way to go. I'd go so far as to call it a complete failure at this point. The world is uninteresting, there's little reason to want to advance. MMORPGs have to have a solid structure upon release. WoW had this, LotRO had this, Everquest had this, EVE Online had this and so on. Tabula Rasa really just did not and I don't see it recovering. The interesting combat components can only go so far.

World of Warcraft I don't play anymore. I keep trying to get into it and have been trying to since I bought the original version years ago. It's an excellent game and it's been tweaked so much since release that it's really pretty amazing. There's no shortage of people to group with, for obvious reasons (there's over 8,000,000 subscribers, a total anomaly in this genre).

My interest in it finally died somewhat recently. I was running around as a Blood Elf, trying to get 8 Lynx Pelts. Over two dozen dead lynxes later I had three. THREE. This had happened so much over the course of my playing this game over the years that I just decided enough was enough. Blizzard have become the kings of artificially extending the life of MMORPGs, something that seems completely unnecessary given the sheer amount of quests in the game and how many characters you can possibly create that can be almost completely different.

Dungeons and Dragons Online has some interesting concepts. Its menu systems are almost completely different from the traditional MMORPG designs. Unfortunately, not many people play it anymore... although its following seems devoted.

Personally I play Lord of the Rings Online. You can get the game for as little as $10 now, which helps immensely, obviously.I just think the game is fun, progression is rewarding and the story is integrated into the main game play in a way that's generally unheard of in MMORPGs. You don't have to be a Tolkien freak to get into it (I sure am not), which is also a plus. There's a thread here on this game if anyone has more specific questions about it.

The main thing I love about it is that the WoW-style 100 kills for 10 animal parts is almost completely nonexistent. Every so often I run into a quest where the drop is maybe 80% instead of 100%, but even that's barely comparable. If it seems bad, chances are you're in the wrong area.

There's trials of all of these (except maybe Tabula Rasa). I think the best thing to do is to find someone to play with in each of them and give them a try for a week. It's the only way to figure out which one suits you.

[The Spectacular Professor]

I really probably have a bad opinion of this. I personally hate the idea of paying for a game more than once, so no buying MMO's for me. I download the free ones. I only really have one which is [B]Tales of Pirates[/B]. It's a fun little distraction but gets old fast, so I'm mostly a solo to 4-player gamer. MMO's can be pretty fun if you get the right one, though.

(BTW: Don't get [B]Pirates of the Carribbean Online[/B]. Even on the slowest servers it is ridiculously laggy and the game itself isn't fun enough to make up for it.)

[Semjaza]

I definitely understand that mindset.

I think with pay-for MMORPGs you have to just be sure to find ones that make it worth the investment. The sheer amount of work that goes into WoW can help ease the blow I think... but on top of this, the users receive regular updates to the game. Not just bug fixes, but new options, quests, areas, etc.

WoW might be $15 a month, but even before the expansion pack it had increased significantly in content, modes and the sheer amount of places to go.

The same is true of LotRO. They've added player housing, refined the raids, adding player costume options, tons of quests, new enemies, massive new areas. I bought the game for $20 and I really just don't mind paying $30 every three months for all of it. By the time I add it up, it's the cost of two or three games, which I feel pretty much equals out with the sheer amount of things that get added to these titles.

Of course, some are significantly more lazy. FFXI has had like four additional expansion packs at like $30 apiece, some containing things that WoW or LotRO would have arguably done for free for paying subscribers. You just have to be careful.

[Endymion]

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="DarkSlateBlue"]Thanks Sem for reminding me! I forgot about [B]EVE Online[/B]. Not because it sucked. It was actually really fun. It sort of reminded me of that singleplayer sci-fi game where you can get new ships/upgrade and whatnot and was voice by the magnificent Bruce Campbell. The same friend that had gotten me addicted to the previously mentioned MMORPGs got me into this one too. Mining was alright, trading was fairly decent and missions were the occasional flavor. Too boost the love of the game, we became pirates - and became quite effective at that. His frigate was equipped for electronic warfare (warp/target disruptors, etc) with a small armament of close range laser turrets. My frigate on the other hand was pure muscle. Heavily shielded and armed to the teeth with two missle turrets and two railguns...it was a long/medium range behemoth(woohoo Caldari!). Over the course of a few weeks, we probably raked in close to 500M isk (the currency in the game). Our best pirating adventure was one that actually didn't get us any money. Found some guy mining, my friend disrupted his warp escape while I beat the ship down to its structure. (Ships 1st defense was shielding, followed by armor, then structure). After a lengthy conversation between my friend and our target, he still didn't pay up the measly 10M isk we were asking for. Instead he stalled us so his friends showed up in 3 cruisers of various types. I launched a single missle and destroyed the punk's ship, leaving only his life pod. The cruisers had warped into the general area, but weren't in effective weapons range for me...so I told him to pay up or die. Missles whizzed by. My friend warped towards the jump gate out of the system. No money was injected into my account. I let the missle fly and Mr. Miner got to wake up in a clone facility in some unknown system. I exchanged fire briefly was his now disgruntled friends and warped to one of the planets. My friend was not able to leave the system initially as they had another friend blockading the gate. Cat and mouse ensued for an hour, maybe two. Finally, in the open chat of the system, after a lengthy discussion between them all for us to see, they all converged on the jumpgate. My friend and I decided to run the blockade. The security in the system was enough so that there were galactic police around the gates as well. As we accelerated for the gate, the cruisers belligerently opened fire. The police ships, seeing the one sided firing opened fire as well as the defensive turrets. As we warped away, we laughed our ***** off as the cruisers exploded. All of them. We estimated the cost of ships with minimal equipment was probably between 500M to 1B isk. Sucks for them. Then we got slapped with 10M bounties each :animesmil yay for notoriety.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[[Sound_Nin]]

[COLOR=Navy][FONT=Book Antiqua]My experience in this subject is very small. So I'll keep this quick.
The only two I have played are Maple Story and for a very, VERY short amount of time, Runescape.

Screw Runescape. The graphics alone turned me off of it, so I'll never know if the gameplay is worth it.

As for Maple Story, it was okay. Not really the best, not much to do, but it was fun. If you don't mind having to kill 123,162,634,247,853 snails.
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