Most Immersive (and best) MMORPG?

I stopped playing ffxi about a year ago now. Since then they added 2 more jobs and another expansion pack. The've also updated just about every job. As for grouping,from what my friends tell me it still sucks 1-69. 70+ is just about what everyone does now, and thats what all the new content is adding to.

 

Lowered levelling time in WoW has been a godsend for playing alts, I love it, it feels like less of a grind as well. I think it was a great change by Blizzard.

 

Very true, but being a level 60 preBC was something special. Now being 70 is well best described as "ehh". Like I said I made 3 70s in the time it took to make one 60 preBC, so I feel more attached to my preBC character due to that.

 

Avid MMORPG player here. Played EQ1 at launch. What a wonderful game that was pre PoP. Moved over to DAoC. Another great game RvR wise. Then I went to WoW at launch. The game seemed very basic and bland. Even pre BC expansion it was easy to hit 60. I tried EQ2 when it was launched and it was a mess, but after a ton of expansions and add ons I decided to give it a second chance. and boy am I glad! Lots of quests now to enjoy. And being in a world that felt like home so long ago is nice too. Just wish there were more players at my growing level but I will soon catch up with the rest of the community that is at the higher levels.

 

Bump. Trying to find a game I could start to get into during spring break!

 

By the way, if anyone has an Age of Conan beta code that they aren't going to use I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

 

Um... thin? lol. You're so completely wrong on that point. WoW lore is very, very heavy. There are several plot lines that twist throughout the game.

There is lore to actually explain almost everything in WoW. Just reading a brief on it took me 4 hours... I.E... the Worgen. Theres an entire quest chain explaining why they are there. It also ties in with what corrupted darkshire (or whatever it is called) and explains who Attunement is in Karazhan.

There is lore all over explaining Scarlet Crusade, all the old school raid dungeons and pretty much every new raid bit (though kara is a bit light).

In regards to the whole BELFs having pallys... It's a neat idea. Stealing one of those uhh... whatever beings they were called and sapping their power. I don't agree with them adding that in to support pallys on their side, but it is neat.

though if they really followed the lore to a T... not all the humans would be on the alliance. Proudemore actually killed her father to help stop the Alliance from invading into Thrall's territory and to also help foster some peace. It's the reason why Thrall tolerates Theramore :-D

I agree 100%.

 

Wow is a massively multiplayer online hack and slash. I know it's not graphical, but if you really like role playing, not just running around grinding, I'd recommend you check out www.battlmaster.org. I've wanted to try EVE for a while as well, that looks pretty free-form (in other words, actually role playing).

 

There's no real RP'ing in EVE. Gates are generally camped and unsuspecting travellers are blown to smithereens (podded).

 

That's unfortunate. I sometimes wish people would play in games instead of playing the games. I play the game plenty too, but sometimes, it is just fun to forget you are playing a game and just...play.

 

I couldn't agree more. I hear so many who say the game really starts at 70 or whatever max level it is for a game which kinda makes me scratch my head a bit. If anything lvl 70 is when the fun stops and it all becomes one endless cycle of rep farming, loot farming...and once you've reached your goals, Blizzard will make them obsolete and so again you go farming. that's one way to keep the subscription base.

I've seen ppl do the same raid instance over and over and over hoping for a certain drop because at 70 what else is there to look forward to? They call that fun? For me the whole point of playing is the fun of progressing your char and leveling up, running instances when they're still challenging and new.

I love Battlegrounds but with so few maps it got tired after awhile (if they had more map variety I'd probably still be playing it) and I hated the new team vs team PvP which is basically a mechanism to gain enough rep for rewards. It is akin to putting a few ppl in a box and having them fight it out. At least BGs was real content. So having seen how little fun life at 70 was, I figured it was time to quit.

 

I'd like to post a comment on Guild Wars, which I have been playing around for quite some time.

At first I played regularly, something like 8 hours every week (which is still very little compared to most people in WoW). Now I play occasionally, say 2 or 3 hours/week (I'd like to play more, but now I have a lot of work).

Guild Wars had something which might seem counter-intuitive: it has a level cap of 20, and achieving level 20 can be done in something like 20-30 game hours. So you get there quite fast. However, THAT'S when the fun starts! You are levelled with almost everyone, but you still have plenty of unexplored game content, not counting the endless variety of PvP modes (Hero Battles, Alliance Battles, Guild vs. Guild, Random Battles, and I think there are a few more I haven't tried yet). This also means that you can play at your own pace -- people who play every day are levelled with people who play once a week.
Another interesting cap is on the number of skills. When you learn a skill it's yours forever, but whenever you go on a quest/mission/PvP battle you can only take 8 skills. That means you have to carefully select which skills you take, and what synergizes well with what.

Another great thing about GW is the modular nature of the expansions. I didn't buy the two latest expansion packs (there are four total, counting the original game), so I only have about half the game. That doesn't prevent me from playing and being level with ANYONE. It only limits the choice I have on skills and the amount of game content I can explore.

From what I heard from friends, the GW community is WAY more mature than WoW's, although you shouldn't expect a miracle. It is not uncommon to see real role-play in the major cities (just yesterday me and two friends role-played a prisoner and a "good cop and bad cop" scene -- it was real fun).

To sum it up: I don't think you should compare GW and WoW to see which is better. If you like powerlevelling, grinding, and constantly working to get to the next level, don't go to GW because you'll get to the level cap in no-time. If on the other hand you prefer casual play without "falling behind" in the community, and a more mature community, give GW a try. Although GW2 is coming up, I still recommend GW as a good game.

 

Gunna add more detail to bwhxeon since i still play.

Improvement to travel time. Yes and no you can raise your own chocobo now and use it to ride. Out post warps are still the best form of travel, and they have certain NPC's that will teleport you to farther towns as long as you have done the quests.

Economy. Not as bad now days compared to the 10million gil items of old items that seem to hard to obtain are now obtainable given some equip have RARE/EX versions that does the same thing but is basically free after you hunt a certain mob for it Kinda like (Soulbound items in WoW). The Economy has somewhat balanced out well on my server prices dont fluctuate as bad as before they got strict with "gil sellers and farmers" Basically SE doesnt have a problem whipping out the ban stick.

Grouping. I dont think this will ever change it depends on your job i say its hard in the earlier stages but past 50 you will be alright. fastest lvling jobs IMO BRD,NIN,RDM,PLD. You also have the ability to solo they added something called campaign battles it gives you the ability to "solo" only negative impact you cannot skill up if you are participating in campaign battles.

All in all i still play this game I have tried others like WoW, GuildWars,Lineage2, Sword of the new world, etc but always find myself coming back to play ffxi. Anyway if you do decide to come back to game like any other MMO its just better with friends.

 

Actually, if you play on a RP realm, there is a lot of RPing going on. Just don't go to a RP-PVP server! I played on one for 2 years... I never did much RPing. But the alliance side on our realm... They never PVPd! So... expect NO backup when you or a town gets raided

Used to have some fun RP moments in Goldshire :-D Drunken nekkid fighting ftw!

 

Hollownail, I don't think you can really RP in a world where you can kill the same king/dragon/generic enemy boss 100 times in a row. The most you can do is play the story; you can't really play a role in the world, as your role is already pretty much pre-defined.

 

That has 0 bearing on whether a game is a role playing game. It is YOUR choice whether you want to go kill Onyxia... or kill her a hundred times.

Many people who do hard core RPing on WoW don't focus on raiding. They focus on doing what they want.
WoW and other MMO's are more open to the roles you can play than most other RPG's. Look at Final Fantasy. You have less choice in there than you do in WoW.

But I guess that kinda comes down to what you consider role playing. Try as I may, I find it hard to see your view on that.

 

Single player role playing is different then multiplayer role playing. Also, most single palyer games are pretty light on role playing. The difference between role playing and not is that when you role play, you largely create your own story, while when you are not role playing, you are generally following a story created by someone else. If there is RP in WoW, I would say it is in spite of the game, not because of it.

That's not to say that games that have you play a pre-defined story are necessarily bad, just that calling them role-playing games is somewhat of a misnomer. However, I would point out that he OP asked for the "most immersive" MMO, so I would say that my point is valid within the context of the thread.

 

So... what you've basically just said... is that there is no such thing as a role playing game on a computer. Every game has you in some sort of role. Some give you the illusion of "choosing" your path... like Oblivion. You still don't get to choose your own story. You get to make some minor choices... but in the overall view of things, you still play a set role.

But people create their own stories in WoW. Sure, its not official. You can't drop quests in there...

I really can't agree at all with your definition of role-playing. Roleplaying is playing a role by definition. Whether you are playing a role someone else has setup for you or one that you made yourself is inconsequential.

 

For me, an MMORPG is best judged by the community it inspires.

The two best communities I have ever been in for an MMORPG are:

Lineage2
Everquest

The absolute worst (by a massive margin) is:
World of Warcraft


World of Warcraft is actually an ok game.
The problem isn't the game; its the community where every other game's villiage idiots are the norm and not the exception.

 

Never played EQ or L2... But yeah... its hard to find good people to play with in WoW. So many idiots. Just look at trade chat on any given day. It's terrible.
I know more people who've moved to RP servers because more mature people tend to flock there (or at least older people).

 

By that definition, HL2 and other FPSes are RPGs. Hell, Peggle and Diner Dash have stories in which you play a role.

I think there is a difference between what is commonly accepted as "RPG" in games and what is really role playing. It doesn't make those games less fun necessarily, but it does make them less role-play...-y (I made up a new word, yay). As to games like Oblivion, I think they are pretty strong on the role playing. They set you in a world in which you can do whatever you want, really. I think an open world where the player can have a direct impact is a pre-requisite to a true role-playing game.

 

Actually its funny... I don't really think Oblivion is that strong in role playing. Yeah.. sure you can become a vampire. But in the end you are still playing the same role that everyone else does. You still have the same objective. And not much you do really has a major impact on the game. Go slaughter an entire town. Nothing much changes.

That is a constraint of C-RPGs. The illusion of freedom of choice is certainly strong, but you can't say, take your Jedi in KOTOR and make him truly evil. The game would have to change the entire end objective. Likewise, in Oblivion, you have no real way of being evil and assisting in letting the evil guys (forgot their name) take over.

I'm not saying that these games are the pinnacle of role playing, especially in your open world definition. Thats still the realm of table top. But even then... you are constrained to the DM's world in some ways. You are still given an objective to meet. Though of course, you do have flexibility way beyond what any c-rpg can provide.

 

The Lord of the Rings Online

 

Haha, I have three Level 70's and I'm bored of the game. (150 days /played -- > 3600 hours)

Maybe I should sell my toons?

 

WoW gets boring fast if that is all you do. i played the retail version of the game for about a year and a half -- this was before the burning crusade came out. i had 3 60s and a couple 30s. did almost everything you could do at that time. then i got bored/angry/frustrated and just stopped playing. now i'm playing on a private server that supports version 2.4.x with the burning crusade, and it's pretty fun, especially for someone who's already went through all of the crap of playing the game for real for awhile

i also have lineage 2, city of heros, and oblivion... however, i still play WoW lol

 

Wait for Warhammer online. That is going to be my next. WoW gave me alot of good hours, as did EQ and EQ2. Conan looks... meh to me.

 

Rappelz is not half bad for a free mmorpg. Going to try Perfect World tonight.

 

Every warhammer beta tester I know is currently playing conan...

I think that's all the review you could possibly need.

Warhammer has some cool concepts... but they need someone to feature cap them and get it playable as is...

I really hope warhammer does pull out of its tailspin... but I doubt it will.

 

I played WoW for a few months, and quit after I got to the Outlands. What made me quit was that there was nothing to look forward to; the Outlands are pretty much more of the same. Questing or grinding endlessly, wasting time and money. People say that the game starts at 70, but I don't really like the idea of putting in days of gameplay to get the next best item, or some in game title.

 

GuildWars is pretty sweet

 

that's why private servers are fun ^^

 

I would have to say WoW, but i haven't played AoC or LORTO. XI was fun but needing a party to level really made me stop seeing as how hard it is to find a great party. And Runescape deserves to burn horribly.
Warhammer looks like it will be pretty cool if you like alot of pvp

 

To the OP, the most immersive game I've played is Eve-by far.

The immersion is greater than normal games because it is one persistent universe and holding your space is something that actually matters a lot in Eve.

I wouldn't even start playing it unless you like PvP and don't necessarily mind a stiff (realistic) death penalty. There is no 'respawn' point or go find your gravestone. When you get killed, your stuff is gone-it just got blown up.

Eve also has by far the best economy of any game I've played and there are quite a few who play just to rake in currency and see how rich they can get.

My personal highest cash worth was 40 billion ISK btw


Other than Eve, I'm hoping that AoC is the next immersive game. So far, it's quite a bit like an adult-themed WoW. That's a good thing in that it's not foreign but I do hope the game grows into its potential to be different.

I also liked CoH/CoV a lot, but I wouldn't really call it all that immersive. For me, immersive means the main enemy is players and people can't beat the same boss everyday to earn the stuff they want.