Jun 6, 2010
Posted by Spooner | 16 Comments
Commence the Rage!
Since a lot of you folks’ servers will be down for a while (mine’s still up haha server-viagra) I figured I’d post this. My unabashed opinion on the MMO games we have access too now that actually got more than 100 subscribers.
- WoW: The casual MMO. Whoever puts the most time into it will emerge victorious. Not a lot of skill required but nerdcore players will argue this to the grave. Currently tip-top of the totem pole.
- EQ(2): An MMO for people who want so much mindless shit to do they don’t want to leave the house, but don’t want to play a Korean grindfest…
- Guild Wars: The MMO for people who want to stand in towns with no clothes on /dancing.
- City of Heroes/Villains: The first superhero MMO that ended up drowning itself to death with the implementation of player created content.
- Warhammer Online: The “WoW killer” that turned out to rip off what it wanted to get rid of a little too much.
- Aion: What was promised; westernized innovative epic taking place in an original setting. What was delivered: Korean grindfest.
- Champions Online: Cryptic’s attempt at making a more successful version of City of Heroes, which turned out to be a single player MMO. Even quests where 2+ people are recommended are soloable.
- Star Trek Online: Cryptic’s Sci-Fi re-skin of Champions Online. Still manages to score numbers because trekkies will buy wrapped dog shit if it has the Federation symbol on the package.
- EVE Online: Acts like it’s own autonomous virtual country. Other players would fucking you twice at once if they had two dicks. Plays by itself when you’re asleep.
Discuss.
If a single player game comes out and it is a piece of crap, then people tend to generally agree that it’s a piece of crap. For every Half-life 2 there is a Dreamkiller (a real shitty first person shooter if you haven’t heard of it). So why is it that for MMO’s, the attitude is different? There doesn’t seem to be a shitty MMO, just a “you don’t like it because it’s hard” (I’m looking at you Aion), or “you just don’t understand the game”. If a single player game receives a score of say 6.7 on IGN, many people would not even look twice at that game. But for MMO’s, a 6.7 is inconsequential. I don’t know if it’s just that in people’s heads they think, “oh hey, they will fix the problems eventually”.
I guess what I am trying to say in my ramblings is that developers need to start trying to make a quality game at its core that happens to be an MMO, and not an MMO that just happens to be a quality game. I
Ultimately I think it falls a lot on the publishing company like EA and such that have too big of a veto hammer with the games developers pump out. It doesn’t help at all either when developers start to market and then produce their games based on the expectations of other titles.
Think of game A as a wonderful blowjob given by a blond. Now look at game B as the same blowjob but this time it’s a redhead. Stupid fans are going to argue for decades how one is better than the other when at its core the experience is exactly the same other than the very minor aesthetics. Developers listen way too fucking much to the publisher’s demands and the player’s expectations.
WoW – Been with it since day one, as of late though it’s become so much grinding and the lore has felt bland to me. I have hopes Cataclysm will revive things a bit. Either way as my first MMO it will always hold a special place right next to Shredders helmet and a few rungs below the Triforce.
EQ2 – I tried, but honestly it hurts my brain. WoW has spoiled me stupid and I freely admit it.
City of Villains – Yes i picked villains. This game, like masturbating, gets old fast. It felt like a single player game where the world was populated by player controlled NPC’s. Even joining a guild I still ended up soloing an un-soloable game.
Warhammer Online – Well it seemed like it would be awesome right. But it was just a grittier looking WoW.
Aion – Such a fuckball assspanking flop in my book. But because of it’s sting I was more cautious and was thus spared the horror of purchasing the next game..
Star Trek Online – This game has been hoped and wished for for near 5-6 years, and I could not be any more saddened by the pure crap of it. Thank god I did the beta. And even then I only lasted up until I started flying from system to system and just could not bring myself to play something that looked like it belonged in the 90′s in terms of mechanics.
EVE – I have to give credit to CCCP. These crazy people actually hold a conference with players to get their input and use it to improve the game. Most of my gripes with it are that I didn’t really invest enough into playing this game seriously and frankly if I had bothered to understand the mechanics I probably would have had more fun. THAT BEING SAID, working my butt up to battlecruiser level and having it owned by some frigate jockey with a few drones frankly brought me to tears and I could not bring myself to spend the time to rebuild my glorious URSUS mk4.
–END RANT
I can agree WoWs lore is getting stale with all this Arthas crap dragging on for so long now. I think this coupled with 10s and 25s and for a while heroics and non heroics put far too much of the same old crap to do for a lot of people. Heres hoping Cata will improve on there failings though, and by the looks of it they have caught most of these things. Including the “doing random shit” having such a large world and such a war like environment seemed to make people to, which vanilla had.
On the WoW takes no skill comment someone has to bite just for you spoon
It is very much the case you can get a long way by being average, but a collection of good players will always get farther, faster, and with less help. There might not be the Epeen status there used to be, but there is still a huge amount of challenge in the game if you want to attempt it.
As far as the games mentioned:
WOW – played a 5 day trial, nothing there made me look forward to logging in and playing.
Guild Wars – own it. No desire to play it; maybe because everyone is standing around in towns.
WAR – subscribed for a few months, until the game locked up repeatedly. All the idiots seemed to play dwarfs. Started out as a Rune Priest, but due to lack of support, from my fellow dwarfs playing tanks, ended up as a Warrior Priest – I don’t think I was alone in making this move. Open PvP servers where open PvP was discouraged by the player base – wtf?
Aion – still playing. All the idiots seem to play tanks – not that they know how to play them. Large group tactics, on my server, seem to be limited to zerging. Leveling seems to be a bit easier with the 1.9 changes. Open PvP without too much bellyaching.
CO – played a 5 day trial. Found it to be OK, but not addictive.
STO – played a 5 day trial. CO based ground combat just doesn’t fit with federation phasers – sorry – no. Ship design and ship combat are the two shining spots in this game. Unfortunately, ship movement between instances is painful. Negatives win – pass.
EVE – played a 5 day trial. Um, yeah, ok, pass.
Klinger hit the sentiment dead on except I was already vested in the Warcraft universe prior to WoW and Aion set me up for something that I didn’t really want in the mass zerging, just not my thing I guess.
I agree with ZumCreep as usual lol the better players get farther, faster, and with less help. I suppose that’s what I like about WoW. I can excel with my circle of friends that pretty much decimate this game and when they’re not on or we can’t get together, I’m not limited to what I can do as there’s usually something else to occupy my time and entertain. Cataclysm needs to step it the fuck up, and be the ANTI KOTICK for WoW.
So… is WoW still the tip-top of YOUR totem pole?
And, yeah, I’m fully aware that there’s gonna be some asshat who takes that the wrong way.
Cataclysm has as much chance as being the Anti Kotick for WoW as Satan has of opening an ice skating rink in hell. From what I have read, Cataclysm will fit Koticks evil plans for sucking your wallet dry just fine.
My biggest problem with all MMOs other than wow is that they are all baked from the same WoW mold (which in turn was baked from the EQ mold), and I’m just tired of it.
MMOs Im hoping will do a god job of shaking the MMO genre up: Tera, FF14, The Secret World. I’d stick Guild Wars 2 in there too but the mold seems still very WoW like to me – but at least they are doing something different with the questing/partying systems.
The real issue is probably the player base. Few people, if any, appear to be able to embrace a game that does not fit their expectations. As WOW was the gateway MMO for a lot of players, it has become the “standard” against which other games are judged.
Okay, I have never beeen on your site before but i found you on youtube Spooner. I just quit WoW because its just waste of money and no skill required. I played it for a year and got finally gave up since there is no fun at 80 after you get kingslayer. I am now switching to Aion and wondering if its good cause all the videos looked great. If anyone has a good response on another game to play besides WoW. Please reply on another good MMO that takes some skill just not about how gear you have like (WoW).
no.
@Marek,
Just a couple of comments on Aion.
Aion is not for everyone as it is open PVP and you will on occasion get ganked. There are PVP-free zones but you can’t stay in them forever.
If you haven’t subscribed to Aion yet, find someone who is playing. There is a “invite a friend” starting June 23rd and, besides a demo code, the in-game loot for the new subscriber is worth putting off subscribing for a few days.
With the last patch, the game is still grindy; but they have made it easier to gain levels and money. Gear does make a difference (twinks), but so does knowing how to play your character. There are players who succeed solely based upon their gear.
Warhammer: An actually very fun game, that focused a huge amount of resources on PvP (it was a PvP game, you PvPed from level 1) but never took hold and ramped up the time needed for leveling around middle of tier 2 (lvl 15-16)
@Klinger
Alright i dont know anyone who plays aion. So should i try it or go to another game? If you have another good game you play which you would recommend please let me know because im bored as **** coming home from baseball and just watching tv.
If you “beat” wow after 1 year, you might like Aion.
It has the most time sink into a single toon, no other game has nearly as much to do “in game” as wow though.
If your highest raiding goal is to get kingslayer in lolnormal mode, and really think pvp past 1700 is about gear, then I dont know what I would do either.
If you have no idea how to progress on your current toon and are getting owned due to “gear” (and have actually bothered to get welfare last instance/season gear) you should roll another class that might amazingly raise your skill(gear?) level and enjoyment in the game.
Such classes include Pally. Second tier classes would be the Druid, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, DK, Hunter. These have more obvious routes to higher play which you seem to have missed.
I know im enjoying playing my shaman at much higher level than I did my rogue, which required more practice than I could put into it to get to the same level.
This is all mostly just for pvp, since your gear > skil complaint is mostly a pvp related issue.
@Marek
Send me an e-mail at _.csATv_r_z_n.net; I’ll put you in for a free trial code.