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EVE was the best MMO I've ever played.

I'm like Ahtman in that verisimilitude is at the top of my list when I consider MMOs. That game was great because all the inevitable slang and leet-speak still felt in character for the setting.

It did all the things that AO did wrong, but did them right.

A close second is Asheron's Call, followed by DAoC.

candy.man wrote:In my experience, people don’t hate it at first but grow to hate it after playing it for a while. I personally played WoW with my mates for a couple of years and I don’t regret playing it. Personally I smartened up and realised the flaws of the game and found better games to play (such as Guild Wars, DDO and LOTRO).

The main flaw with WoW is not the amount of content or depth but the excessive grind/gear based model the game uses. The majority of a player’s time is generally eaten up grinding versus “playing the game” and at $42 AUD a gamecard, it’s hard to justify when you weigh up the entertainment received versus money/time spent. Interestingly enough an unfortunate side effect of this is that the excessive grind needed for good gear exponentially increased scamming and community elitism. The radical powerscale difference between standard gear, end game gear and items released in expansion packs unbalanced PVP to a large degree. It is probably a likely fact that Blizzard purposely structured the game around grinding to increase subscription revenue.

That's pretty much it right there. I enjoyed WoW when I was leveling, but the game changes completely once you top out in level. At that point it's nothing but a gear grind. You eventually realize that unless you are willing to just about make WoW your life you will never be able to grind enough to stay competitive. At that point you either stay because of some other reason or leave. Since RP on my server died when BC came out, except for Stormwind walkers, I had no real reason to stay.

REGARDING CHAMPIONS ONLINE

Yeah, the release was REALLY rushed and all the QA dudes I've talked to said that that it really needed another 6 months of polish and bug testing before retail. Not to mention general content balancing. Makes me sad, because I used to play Champions under the old Hero system....it was an AMAZING tabletop game.


My Favorite MMO's

Vanilla WoW (prior to TBC)
EQ (because dammit I require more bone chips and I feel differently!)
DAOC (best mass PVP ever)
LoL (Best PVP I've seen in....hell almost ever)

Still playing WoW after however many years its been out, but I have tried several other MMOs during that time.

I play for the PVE and PVP aspects, not super fond of crafting, tradeskills, etc. I enjoy cooperatively crawling through a difficult dungeon, especially with guildmates whom I am usually on ventrilo with as well.

While many disparage the "gear grind", I guess it kind of is a funny thing, I enjoy "getting my character ready for something more difficult". And while I can see the gear tiers, and how you are basically always gearing up for the next thing, I guess it boils down to the challenge and doing something cooperatively. Functionally I see dungeons as a subset of co-op games with more people.

As an aside on gear, I do see this as a poor thing to have in the PvP of the game. Everyone should have super-easy access to a baseline set of pvp gear so you don't get blown up instantly. The honor grind for honor pvp gear in Cata is quite painful and long, all the while you are undergeared for pvp. They had it down in Burning Crusade, where the initial set was bought with gold (although cata has crafted pieces, they aren't my profession and are selling between 1000-2000 gold per piece which is wildly exorbitant) and with that you could work towards the next "set" which wasn't MASSIVELY better, and is what most people had.

I did play aion for a short time, and good lord, that game was the grindiest thing I had ever played, beating out even Asheron's Call back many years ago. A good chance to get a piece of gear (your progression as a character at max level) in a dungeon is far preferable to running an entire dungeon, dying several times in the process to obnoxious mechanics, and getting nothing upon completion the great majority of the time.

I really enjoyed Tabula Rasa, unfortunately it was shut down because of the things it did wrong(probably not enough like WoW, sigh), and I guess it didn't do enough right. I am hoping that the WH40k mmo will be similar in some ways (like pseudo-aiming guns, etc) to Tabula Rasa.

Wow this is way too long.
TLDR:
Co-op with friends (pve)
semi-competitve with not terrible balance (pvp)
Challenging dungeon crawls/bosses (pve)
My friends play it

Social Aspect - top priority, without that I'd not stay in the game too long.
With WoW I lucked out with a brilliant guild, that even though I have hit the wall a few times and stayed away for weeks while I did other things. The guild is too much fun to ignore for long.
We play to have fun, have several couples in the guild, a relaxed atmosphere of several nationals, and we make our own way through the end game.

Good example being a mate who was growing tired of the game, changed faction and server to see what my guild was like and he's back interested in the game.

As he said to me earlier, Stonecore a few nights ago, five guildys including him, none of them had run it before, wiped ten times at least. Not a bad word among them, joking, just getting on with the game, learning the fights and finishing the Dungeon.

PvE - is my second focus, I don't mind PvP, but I like to be able to PvE in peace when I'm not.

The game has to have fun PvE, lots to do via professions, things to collect etc

Game world/Story - It has to be something I already like or something I can learn to like (WoW) as without a good story and accompanying world I won't be interested.

The only MMO's upcoming that really interest me are Star Wars TOR, but I am weary oif trying it at launch, would like a free trial first if I'm honest.

The World of Darkness, damn this threw me a curve ball, had it been based on Vampire the Requiem and the 'new' World of Darkness, I'd have taken a glance at it, probably had a go, wished it was Masquerade and gone back to WoW.
But no, blinkin sods announce it is Vampire the Masquerade, so I am basically torn, as a eighteen year veteran of the original World of Darkness I have to play this MMO. I don't care if its PvP, EvE but with Vampires, I don't care, I will be playing and I'll probably be getting the Collector's Edition.

Also obviously 40K, will be playing for certain as well, but if World of Darkness is any good, I'll be honest, WoW and 40K are stuffed.

I just pre-ordered DC Universe Online, which comes out in about two weeks. This game looks incredibly promising, despite me not being the biggest fan of DC comics. I have a feeling that it will completely destroy the player base for both Champions Online and City of Heroes, and it might just attract players who don't really like the concept of MMOs in general.

I can't wait. I'm biding my time with LotRO in the meantime, but I don't think I'll be going back to anything else once I've played DCUO.

I wouldnt play a Free MMO..

As every Free one ive seen has been junk.. If they arent making money off subs, the game isnt going to get the care it needs.


PvP
PvE
General Game content

those are the 3 main things, if you run out of loot to farm or rewards to get, then you dont have much left to do.

Background material and controls.... though I think I've been spoiled by WoW with the latter.

Aside from WoW I've tried Final Fantasy XI, EQ, WAR, and STO as well as some free to plays. Each one had awesome lore/background I thought... but in the end it was the controls that turned me away from them. Except EQ... I mostly stopped playing that because I when I purchased a newer computer and never got around to reinstalling it. If my friends play wouldn't be a factor... When most of my buddies quit WoW I still played... Same with STO... the buddies I usually played with never bothered to renew their subscriptions past the free 30days... I at least played another month of it.