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Need Advice: Looking for Realistic Fantasy MMORPG
Hi! I have played some MMORPGs (Anarchy Online, Ryzom, DAoC, WoW, LotRO) and am checking the game list and announcements here at mmorpg.com regurlarly. But still have not found the game I am looking for. I would like to describe what kind of game I would love to play - if you have a idea which game might fit that description (or at least as close as today's games can get to this), I would be thankful for any suggestions.
Basically, I "just" want REALISM. This may sound a bit odd, as we all play games to escape from the boring and troublesome reality (at least partially), but I am perfectly happy with playing a char in a world I will never be able to live IRL (fantasy setting preferred). Ok, very hard death penalties aren't exactly fun, but apart from that, a game cannot be too realistic for my taste.
What I would love to see in an MMORPG:
- Graphics with realistic colors, models and animations. No chars looking like Super Mario or bubble gum colored skies.
- Free character development without predefined classes.
- A working economic system.
- Game infrastrucure to do realm-wide politics, not just guild-wide (e.g. realm-wide elections, taxes or notifications for all to opt in).
- Many craftable items.
- Aging (possibly eventually dying) characters.
- Construction and destruction of buildings or even villages and towns.
- The possibilty to do roleplay (need some emotes and items for that, many existing MMORPGs meet this).
- Randomness in mob strength, roam paths, behaviour.
- Randomness in quests.
What I hate to see in MMORPGs:
- Having to decide about my char's final abilities after 0 - 20 playing hours.
- Tons of drops that make crafting pointless. Looting something better than crafters can produce should be a rare exception.
- Tons of glowing weapons and other equipment (really, really hate those. Yeah, I know, graphics cards can do these kinds of effects, no reason to make every other item look like a blue torch). Also, glowing melee effects.
- Mobs that spawn at exactly the same place over and over again.
- Completely predictable mob behaviour, even if I have never encountered that mob.
- OOC NPC (and PC) names or OOC items (like the robots in WoW).
- Every mob being huge (i.e. insects).
- Cheap and easy teleportation throughout the whole world.
Any ideas which existing or announced game comes close to this? Suggestions appreciated.
Comments
Well darkfall fits your criteria quite well i guess? but for now i would say try out Atlantica online, it's a strategy game like final fantasy and quite fun if you ask me
As the guy above said Darkfall will have most of those things hopefully.
I doubt it has aging though.
You can sign up for the beta on their website.
aging and dying characters would make a lot of gamers depressed i think (recalling the "tamagotchi" era). but it would be cool to see your character age over time. hair turns grey, face becomes wrinkled etc.
darkfall. mortal online. take your pick. either way, you're gonna have to wait.
WurmOnline has the green stuff to a great extent. granted it's very indy, repeat after me "this is an indy game I will not go in with false expectations I realize that the engine was originally made by 2 programmers in their hobby time therefore I will not go in with false expectation" however that said it's more bug free than most AAA mmos are when they release and for a few while(sometimes long) after their release just lacks a lot of polish you're used to.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Isn't realistic fantasy an oxymoron?
Also you might wanna look into MORTAL ONLINE - it sounds fantastic with the exception of one feature which unfortunately is a deal breaker for me - it's in First Person View play.
http://www.mortalonline.com/ = Cinematic trailer through in-game footage.
http://www.mortalonline.com/features features.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
Phantasy star online, and FFXI have some of what you are looking for.
Thank you very much for your suggenstions. The concept of Darfall is very promising, but I don't like the graphics and animations I've seen so far (especially animations are horrible).
Mortal Online looks like the best match so far, but I am not sure if I like the 1st person view.
Still have to take a look at the other candidates you mentioned. Thanks again.
With realistic I mean believable and coherent in itself.
I'd say you take a look at Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
is mortal online out yet? it seems like an awesome game.
is mortal online out yet? it seems like an awesome game.
Nope, sorry to say but it's not out yet
To me, this is actually going to be a great thing. I've been watching Mortal online from the start and can't wait until beta. First person view, great. Reminds me of the neocron days. Mortal Online will be unique, can't wait.
18 months after the original post, I still have not found a good candidate for the kind of game I am looking for.
Do you have any ideas after reading the initial posting?
Any input welcome.
You are looking for a little element called "dynamic" in your points. Right now PvE doesn't really offer that in MMO's. You need to rely on more of a PvP element if you are looking for unpredictability for challenge. Human players are really the only thing that bring those elements to the table.
I'm sure your looking for a medieval fantasy, but you didn't specify. Theres One game that comes to mind which is EvE online. But its Science Fiction, not medieval Fantasy. And, i really cant tell you how realistic it is, since we havent got that far in time yet, but im sure its pretty close.
The only others i can think of are Mortal Online and Darkfall. Sadly, Mortal isnt out yet and darkfall has a horrible community. Sorry i can be of more help.
Id say go back to DAOC for real alot of exciting things happening like a complete server merger and the pop is good at the moment on devon it will be awesome on Ywain...look the water is good in DAOC right now even it don't last...ride the lightning one more time brother for a last hurrah!
Sorry, for not having replied yet and thanks for your answers, especially to Torak.
@beeker255: Sorry, but DAoC is dead for me. The last big decisions in the DAoC development were all awful, especially copying WoW Tauren and introducing more and more grind.
@shadowlz: I've tested Eve and liked it. But not enough to get hooked. As you can see from this thread I have patience. I can wait till Mortal comes out
.
AoC is very cheap nowadays. I guess I'm gonna test it for 1 month.
Good question. I guess because I want to feel some kind of evolution. Ever reactivated an account after 1 year? It feels strange if the char just stands wherever he was when you logged out a year ago.
Most games won't allow me to. And in some of those where this is possible, weapon traces convey information about the kind of attack/weapon, so you would put yourself in a disadvantage shutting them off.
Exactly. I meant names not fitting the game world. Or generally all elements that are not coherent. All games could do that but only few do.
Yes, that's a wise conclusion. I tried that with DAoC and WoW pvp servers. But pvp servers tend to be radically anti-role-playing. You can visit almost no zone without the constant danger of being ganked.
You could try Mabinogi. Its more of a social, solo-small group MMO, though it seems to have what you're looking for with the exception of a few things. Not sure if you'll end up liking it but it doesn't cost anything to try heh.
Okaay, this game probably won't have everything you mentioned but I'll tell about it anyway. FFXIV
There's a few pics. I think it's pretty realistic and beautiful.
Here's some character emotes to tell you about the animation quality:
www.youtube.com/watch
As for free character development system I'm not sure what you mean exactly. FFXIV has 4 types of classes to choose from; melee classes (including ranged), magic classes, crafting and gathering classes. You can freely switch between the 4 types (each type has many subcategories, like melee classes have Archer, Gladiator, Marauder and Pugilist so far) and you can, for example get to the maximum level without fighting once if you want to level a crafting class like Cook or Weaver.
The economic system should be working, although I'm not sure if you mean something specifically like player driven economy or NPC driven.. no clue about that yet.
No clue about realm-wide politics yet; it could be possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Since crafting is a bigger part of the game than normally in MMO's where it has a role of a minigame at best, I bet there'll be tons of craftable items. You can also dye the armors weapons and clothes as you wish and add runes and stuff.
No aging, or construction and destruction of villages (although in the story and cutscenes this might happen).
Roleplaying should be possible as you saw from the emotes, Square-Enix is considering creating emotes for two or more characters to do as well.
Monsters have better AI than usually. If you keep doing same attack over and over again, the monster starts to see through your actions. Roam paths will be random, and there are many types of mob behaviour.
Quests have different puzzles for you to solve. You can also mix up quests and there should be a random element to them.
Since you can witch classes freely you don't have to decide the characters abilities after few hours of playing. You can always switch classes.
SE has always taken a more realistic approach in their game, so glowing weapons won't be that common.
Mobs won't spawn at the same spot over and over again.
Mob behaviour should be different based on mob type. Some run away to get help, etc.
There is a cheap and easy teleportation system, but you can only use it few times a day. You'll be using other means of transportation more often than not.
Indeed, Final Fantasy 14 will be the best rpg for him, but he will have to wait roughly a year for it to go live. If he's like most of us, a year is too long to go without a game, and he'll need something to pass the time. I personally will be playing FFXIV, and may pick up FFXI again in the interim.
Wurm Online.
Thank you for your suggestions! I will look into these.
P.S.: YouTube-Video is offline.