This is the closest thing to myspace or twitter faggotry that I will ever touch, so I will just post this here. Really all I want to do is post thoughts on several MMMOs out there, and some coming soon and see if opinion is pretty much the same. And maybe share some screenshots and stories.
World of WarcraftI don't want to talk about WoW anymore. All I really want to say about this game is people need to stop bullshiting with themselves and realize you don't want to quit because you are upset with upcoming changes, you don't want to quit because of some faggotry faction change service, or the cost of said service. You feel the way you do because it's tired. It's no longer fresh and fun for you. Move on. It's been 4 and a half years or so.
If you enjoy it, that is great and awesome.
I only have one screenshot worth a shit that I bothered to keep.
We ride together. We die together. Duke Boys for life.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.--Then
Now I was hella rough on this turd. Justifiably so in my opinion. This was to be the game to make up for the shotcomings of WoW PVP and the abortion that was Age of Conan. I don't think I am out of line to say it failed on all counts on it's launch in almost the same way Conan did. The early stages of playing it were polished like no other, sadly in an attempt to hide the glaring flaws that would soon follow and be discovered. There was no actual want or need to defend keeps. PvP was a mishmash of AE fucking and rage inciting crowd control abilities to such an extent that it sucked the fun out of the game with the force that only a 13 year old Thai ladyboy hooker could muster. The list just grew and grew.
The PvE was jokingly bad. NPC AI was terrible, quests seemed just there to be there. The Public Quest system, while a super awesome thing soon became wastelands as players left and there was no way to complete them, leaving people to farm early stages only to wait 5 plus mins for a reset since there was no way to complete them.
My list of complaints were pretty long. I was really frustrated how Mythic could fuck something up guarenteed to print money like the Warhammer universe.
Oh, and worst tradeskilling ever.
--Now
The PVP is still very much fun. They have made a ton of improvments to performance that make keep/castle sieges not send your computer into meltdown. It still can get bad, but dropping settings works like a champ now.
They retweaked all the Renown PVP gear, making it pretty much a must to keep your ranks close to one another, because that PVP gear destroys anything else you will find. Any gear pretty much that isn't gotten through renown is vendor/talisman making fodder.
But thats alright, because the PvP is just pretty much awesome fun. It's still a very simplistic formula. You get all your core class abilities within the first 20 levels or so, everything afterward is your anti this, or make this not do this filler and CC breaks. Speaking of that, the crowd control is still off the hook gay, but you can deal with it. I read they may tone it back a bit.
PvE is pure and utter shit. Except for PQs, those are fun and they now added in or redesigned specific ones aimed at groups of 2 or 3, which can be solo'd by most. But at it's core, PvE in this game is a waste of time.
So while there was a lot of anger at first over this title, they are making good attempts to fix things and it is a ton better game now than it was at launch. I just wish it played more fluid, like say WoW. Everything still moves like it's a bit slowed down, even after they tweaked the GCDs.
It is very playable and fun, but make no mistake, if you go in expecting any PvE at all, other than PQs which you will be bored to shit over within 3 days, you will be SORELY disappointed. The PvE is garbage sorry. Thankfully they know this and don't try to hide the fact that PvP is the way to play the game.
Oh, and save yourself some pain. Don't play a tank class. Roll something ranged, or roll a healer. Because healing in this game is the most fun you will ever have doing that job in a game.
I had several screenshots but they are gone now so oh well.
EverQuest 2--Then
What a stubborn hoe this game is. When she came on the scene, she was one high dollar whore. The system requirements to run this needy bitch were outrageous and really now that I think about it, not really public release yet. Coming out a full two months before World of Warcraft did, I think I tried to run this on a 1.3ghz Athlon with 1 gig of ram and a 9800 Pro.
Big mistake. Pretty sure I melted my poor computer and if I recall, I upgraded shortly afterward.
I really don't recall any glaring launch problems, some say it had a shitty launch but I honestly can not remember. Squink and I had a pretty good initial run, roling as two swashbucklers I think. It was pretty fun actually. I recall there just being so many quests and things to do it was pretty overwhelming. One gripe I know we had is one that people still knock the game for to this day.
Too many god damn buttons, and every one of them is important.
This is my Froglok Swashbuckler. See all those buttons on the first row? Those are all attacks. All of them have debuff components and I must land them all to win.
Nutty.
Anyway, yeah, I can't remember any REAL glaring shitflaws other than a lack of solo monsters to slay and the fact it destroyed my computer. I hated that computer anyway.
--Now
Today, I can't help but feel very sad that I did not experience any of the latter raid content. I hear it was fun and there is always that nostalga factor. Their patches are always something pretty amazing and this game has more content in it that you will probably ever see anywhere else. Their mentoring system is second to none and allows players of all level ranges to play together and gives you a chance to maybe go back and try out some raids/dungeons you missed.
Out of the box, it has one of the best UI's i've seen in a mmo. I used a custom one but could easily do with default if I had to. Move and resize everything.
What is really lacks is players. Some servers are just ghost towns. I played on the heavy pop roleplay server and it was jam packed. It was great and I would suggest starting there. The community is also great there, really reminds me of that old EQ1 feeling of closeness.
Lord of the Rings Online--Then and Now
I initially hated this game, and you know what, I will say it. It's World of Warcrafts fucking fault. Because of WoW, I probably missed out on 2 years of the best mmo experience out there because there was nothing wrong at all with this mmo and I really feel like an idiot for blasting it for not being WoW while looking like wow.
I don't know how Turbine pulled it off, but if I were asked to pick one mmorpg that I would call the best of the best, this is the game I would choose. Outside of going from game to game and ripping out what is great about them and combining it all into one new game, LotRO is the one shining star that does so much right. It does have its little frustrations but the game is just so much fun. Classes will always need balance in any game, and sometimes you feel like the last ability you trained was just some random thing, like one ability my Runemaster got was an AE nuke that roots all targets.
....after 10 seconds.
Initially this confuses me but somehow it works as a skill.
I did not try any raid content, but its there. And it's a beautiful game. I have seen posted some screenshots that just are jawdropping awesome.
Like these.
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm11 ... t00313.jpghttp://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm11 ... t00335.jpgNext up would be Age of Conan and Vanguard if anybody would be interested in seeing and reading more.