I played most all MMo's and with nothing out there, I have to make a choice to go back to my best D&D Online or try to get away from the time sink. I'm mad as hell with the Warhammer and AoC tease. Why do they advertise years before MMo's come out. Sit back, open up your mind and just read the topics in there forums. You will just see how crazy MMO players are. There assuming start dates, what one is better, computer specs. I think some of them are about to take the bridge over this stuff !!!. I'm no better I just built a $2.000 computer for AoC that was to be released in December and now I'm using it to play WoW again. I would like to play a game in the winter not the summer. What I do now is spend my free time reading mmorpg topics. So i'm just as sick as you people:(
I'm looking into playing an off line game such as Oblivion or Witcher. Maybe just maybe I could reduce the stress of having to be there every night keeping up with my guild's or others at my level on my servers and just enjoy a game instead of watching TV. I asked on an Oblivion forum if it's as good as an MMo and people were comming out of the wood work telling that there stress is reduced by playing off line games.
I should delete mmorpg off my favorites and forget about this crap, but something tells me I'm here to stay a little longer.
Oh and heres a little dirty secret nobody will tell you. You don't really need to go to college unless you plan on getting at least a Masters in something, or are interested in a profession that requires that, or a Doctorate. If your smart, you know your stuff, you can do very well in life with only a high school education. But shhh. Colleges make WAY to much money each year to actually reveal that dirty little secret of theirs.
OMG, you HAVE to be kidding here. A college degree is mandatory, and NO, you don't need a Masters or higher in many fields. Good luck getting a software engineering job without a college degree. If you somehow manage to get one, most companies won't pay you anywhere near what the college grads are getting paid. I've been an SE for over 10 years and seen almost 0 phd's. Very few grads had their masters, and that only helped them get a slightly (very slight) starting salary. In computer land, experience is everything.
You can easily make 100k+ a year with a 4 year degree in CS (computer science).
I make more then that, work in micro-electronics, and I have no degree. I have a lot of experience but almost all of it, before I got my current job, was hobby work, and I got flown across the country for the interview, my move was payed for, and I live very comfortably. You need to be intelligent and know what your doing, but you don't need a college education to get a good job in this day and age.
In fact a majority of the people I know that make a good living have no college degree. Do the research. I know the corporations and colleges would like you to think a college education is a must for any field, but the fact is, there are actually more people in the high paying sector without a college education, then there are with one. The percentage of college graduates from most universities that don't go on to work in the field within a year is astoundingly high.
A college education can of course steer you in the right direction, but it isn't a necessity for most occupations. But shhh.. nobody wants you to actually know that. To many people make to much money to release such information to the general public.
Originally posted by Fion Originally posted by HappyFunBall Originally posted by Fion Oh and heres a little dirty secret nobody will tell you. You don't really need to go to college unless you plan on getting at least a Masters in something, or are interested in a profession that requires that, or a Doctorate. If your smart, you know your stuff, you can do very well in life with only a high school education. But shhh. Colleges make WAY to much money each year to actually reveal that dirty little secret of theirs.
OMG, you HAVE to be kidding here. A college degree is mandatory, and NO, you don't need a Masters or higher in many fields. Good luck getting a software engineering job without a college degree. If you somehow manage to get one, most companies won't pay you anywhere near what the college grads are getting paid. I've been an SE for over 10 years and seen almost 0 phd's. Very few grads had their masters, and that only helped them get a slightly (very slight) starting salary. In computer land, experience is everything. You can easily make 100k+ a year with a 4 year degree in CS (computer science).
I make more then that, work in micro-electronics, and I have no degree. I have a lot of experience but almost all of it, before I got my current job, was hobby work, and I got flown across the country for the interview, my move was payed for, and I live very comfortably. You need to be intelligent and know what your doing, but you don't need a college education to get a good job in this day and age. In fact a majority of the people I know that make a good living have no college degree. Do the research. I know the corporations and colleges would like you to think a college education is a must for any field, but the fact is, there are actually more people in the high paying sector without a college education, then there are with one. The percentage of college graduates from most universities that don't go on to work in the field within a year is astoundingly high. A college education can of course steer you in the right direction, but it isn't a necessity for most occupations. But shhh.. nobody wants you to actually know that. To many people make to much money to release such information to the general public.
Wow, I'm suprised anyone else knows about that. I dropped out a year ago from school and I have a job that pays $23/hour. And I'm only 17. But then again it's only because I'm really in good shape, I'm large, and I knew the lady who owns this night club that I work at.
Mustache is a cat That has to go to the vet Do your taxes now
When you feel your "gaming spark" is dying do not fear, for it is just a phase. Mostly everybody experiences it, give it a few months and you'll have that spark back. Also, there is no such thing as a "perfect MMORPG" and there never will be.
I must say im rather suprised with the amount of comments and help you've guys have supplied and i really appreciate all the help.
If mmorpg.com was a game id play it some of the community is depressed and angry at their dads LOL the larger percentage are really cool and do note i have taken every comment into consideration.
What i don't get is gaming developers spend millions of dollars on finding out what gamers want?
They think they know what we want?
Why don't they recruit people that are gamers and get their ideas, players that like pvp...players that like roleplaying and put it all into 1 game?
Who knows as stated on one of the comments over 40% of games have a similar interface to WoW.
Im just going to have to find a clone game
Also i would be willing to pay per month if the game has a good community.
You start in the days of Legacy of the Ancients jumping through paintings, play Eye of the Beholder and draw your own map while exploring it.
You play Phantasy 3 and 4 over and over again cause you love it. Or you put your manuals and boxes in places you don't think light will damage it or you feel the upmost paranoid about saving it from harm.
Flash forward and today when you play a single player game you shelve it the first time you beat it. Or you take a break from any game for that matter for days at a time, come back to it later, or those days become more and more away.
Meh that's going from loving gaming to losing enthusiasm for it. Don't know what made me play more but I seem to be back to playing everyday know. Was worried for a few there.
When you feel your "gaming spark" is dying do not fear, for it is just a phase. Mostly everybody experiences it, give it a few months and you'll have that spark back. Also, there is no such thing as a "perfect MMORPG" and there never will be.
A MMO hasn't has to be perfect. It just has to not be flawed beyond comon sense.
As long as the devs feels they are unworthy and leeching money they don't deserve, they will enforce bad gameplays on us. First, have to restore devs ego.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
You're tired of gaming and in you're only in your teens? Try gaming for 30+ years bud=) I've yet to be bored and hopefully never will. I'm glad I've been around to see games go from Pong and Space Invaders to Crysis. Can't wait until we're jacking them right into our skulls=) If the spark is dying this early, thats a shame.
One thing people need to remember.. the people that post in forums like this and in game forums represent a very small percentage of the people that pay to play MMOs. Generally we are passionate, opinionated, and REALLY like to listen to ourselves talk.. but we are not representative of larger PAYING population of gamers.
I'm sure many developers care about their loyal playerbase and care about staying true to the "vision" they have for their games.... but I ASSURE you they care more about putting money in the bank. And as soon as business becomes more important than artistic integrity in ANYTHING, quality goes downhill. Simple truth is you have to dumb stuff down to feed it to the masses, and MMOs are in the process of going very mainstream.
The reason so many games look like WoW is because it works. Tons of people play it.. it's easy and addictive. If someone is looking to develop a new game and they can rip off a formula that works instead of taking a risk on somthing untested, they will.
There are plenty of other examples of the sacrifice of art in entertainment to the altar of the idiot consumer's dollar.. The show "Firefly" gets cancelled while "Joe Millionaire" goes to #1 in the television ratings. The entire US is enthralled by a bunch of mediocre karaoke singers on "American Idol," meanwhile you can't find a decent rock, hip hop, or country band ANYWHERE in popular culture (have you seen the grammy nominees this year? It's pathetic...)
I think the "spark" that many people are starting to miss is the old feeling that we were part of a special group that was doing something unique and innovative... and honestly MMOs were something completely new when they came out. But now the masses are coming and the devs can smell the dollars. Rare is the person who can stay true to his vision when a very simple moral/ artistic compromise will make them a huge pile of cash. So I fear the overwhelming trend will be toward bland, easily accessible, dumbed-down games from now on.
To be genius is to be misunderstood, and misunderstood people rarely get rich.
deviliscious: (PS. I have been told that when I use scientific language, it does not make me sound more intelligent, it only makes me sound like a jackass. It makes me appear that I am not knowledgable enough in the subject I am discussing to be able to translate it for people outside the field to understand. Some advice you might consider as well)
Actually, the quality of MMOs has risen dramatically. But I keep forgetting how people equate bug ridden, imbalanced, exploitable game play, with lousy graphics, even lousier art direction, a complete lack of intuitive control and UIs and no content to speak of, as quality.
I'd put the quality and care taken in WOW"s developement over the utter technical nightmares UO and EQ were any day of the week. Since I never had any interest in living a virtual life, early MMOs had no quality to speak of because the gameplay sucked horribly. Early MMOs were experiments with people loving them because there were no expectations. I've yet to meet any person face to face who could go back to those days after playing MMOs of today. The gameplay was THAT bad. The glory days only seemed glorious, because the actually quality of the product was so in the basement, there was no where to go but up. Its like popping in an emulator of Doom after playing Crysis and lying to yourself how great a game it is by todays standards.
Actually, the quality of MMOs has risen dramatically. But I keep forgetting how people equate bug ridden, imbalanced, exploitable game play, with lousy graphics, even lousier art direction, a complete lack of intuitive control and UIs and no content to speak of, as quality. I'd put the quality and care taken in WOW"s developement over the utter technical nightmares UO and EQ were any day of the week. Since I never had any interest in living a virtual life, early MMOs had no quality to speak of because the gameplay sucked horribly. Early MMOs were experiments with people loving them because there were no expectations. I've yet to meet any person face to face who could go back to those days after playing MMOs of today. The gameplay was THAT bad. The glory days only seemed glorious, because the actually quality of the product was so in the basement, there was no where to go but up. Its like popping in an emulator of Doom after playing Crysis and lying to yourself how great a game it is by todays standards.
You missed my point.. I was talking more about the feel of a game. I cringe that I am about to use this analogy, but I'm tired and it's the first thing that comes to mind: Go watch the first low-budget, cheaply produced Star Wars with a cast of unknowns.. it is still a great movie. Now go watch one of the later state of the art, unlimited budget Star Wars movies with a star-studded cast... they sucked.. HARD.
Technical perfection is obviously what all developers should shoot for, but when developers stop taking innovative risks to push into new territory in order to make "safe, stable, and widely marketable games," the organic feel (and energy) of the game are often lost as the game becomes more polished.
In all honesty, Eve online had bugs that made me want to pull my hair out. All the time. Even BIG bugs that kept me from logging in or made my machine CTD a couple times per session. But the game was SO GOOD I stayed with it.. for almost four years. The devs at CCP have stayed true to their one-world vision, never sharded the server, never reduced the death penalty... never done stuff that would have gotten them tons of new subscribers but RUINED THE GAME IN THE PROCESS.
When I took a break from Eve to play WoW I really was impressed with the look, feel, and stability of the game.. but the complete lack of depth and intensity (compared to Eve at least) had me bored to the point of quitting in 2 months. It was like watching one of those giant. expensive, star-studded hollywood blockbusters where you realize halfway through the movie that you couldn't care less about the characters or the story.
I'll take bug-ridden, messy , outdated, fun and innovative games over perfectly polished, dumbed-down crap and day of the week.
deviliscious: (PS. I have been told that when I use scientific language, it does not make me sound more intelligent, it only makes me sound like a jackass. It makes me appear that I am not knowledgable enough in the subject I am discussing to be able to translate it for people outside the field to understand. Some advice you might consider as well)
I think your issue is that you choose very repetitive games with extremely limited gameplay. I'm 19, almost 20, and still gaming, but I tend to avoid most of the modern games, especially asian MMORPGs, as they tend to be extremely grind centric, and grind is bad. I'd recommend waiting for a game that focuses more on player vs player conflict or at the very least that gives you a choice to do something other than kill monsters to level up and get better items.
Wow, probably my first post in about a year, but I think this is worth throwing my 2 cents into. Anyways, I hit a point where you were at during my teen years as well. I had a active social life, had friends, all that stuff, and was also a avid player of MMOs.
However as you continue to get older your free time is going to become few and far between. If you get a job you won't be able to attend those 6 hour grinding sessions after school for example. Yet you know if you miss out on those consistently you won't keep up with the rest of your guild.
As your social and professional life continue to grow you will start to have to do stuff like take phone calls on the spot, either from work or the person you are dating. This is where the real flaw to playing a MMORPG comes out, there is no pause button, it's not like a single player game where you can press start, hang up the controler and come back to it in 20 minutes. Nope 20 minutes idle in a MMO espically if you are in a group means you probably will get killed off and not invited back to the group. Unfortunatly this creates a situation where the game controls you rather then you control the game.
I think this is why so many peoples social lifes suffer on account of MMOs. Also as others have stated most MMOs are very repetitive, think about back when you were a kid for a moment. When you were a kid you probably watched some very redundent cartoons (Loony Toons, Tom and Jerry or Scooby Doo for example) as you started to mature these cartoons started to bore you. The solution to this was simple since you just move onto more mature cartoons such as Comic book heroes or Anime type ones. Or you started watching the shows with real actors like 24, Firefly, Heroes, ect.
People tend to think of MMOs as the epitomy of gaming and I think that couldn't be farther from the truth. While they do have their place in the gaming industry perhaps you are ready to make the move from "cartoons" to "real actors" in a sense. There seems to be three directions you can go from here.
If you like the player vs enviroment present in MMOs then single player RPGs will be a ideal solution, they have all the stuff you liked about a MMO with leveling up and custom gear, but they acually have a real story to them. And I am not talking about a kill ten orcs story, I am talking about stories like those found in final fantasy ten that are intense enough to make you cry at the sad parts of the story.
If you like the competitive aspect of MMOs you might want to try board games that are based purely on skill, Go or Chess come to mind right off the bat. Along with these there are other competitive, but not as skill intense table top games like Trading card games, D&D minis, war games like warhammer, ect (but watch out these get expensive fast!) However the nice part about these is they tend to be the least time consuming of the bunch, you just have one night a week you attend a game shop, or a event.
Now I think this one will apply the most to you, if you like the social aspect of MMOs you should consider trying out for one of your school's sports teams. If you thought the teamwork required in a raid was intense wait til you get out on a soccer field, you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of every member of your team inside and out in order to truely be a great player. I know most don't think of sports as being games, but they like any game have a set of rules and a set of goals, your just using your entire body instead of a keyboard and a mouse.
Well there we go, my post about "What's a gamer to do after MMOs" As for me I have been MMO free for about a year now, maybe a bit more. I still think about them alot, and keep MMORPG.com and it's forums on my list of links for news in the gaming world. But for everytime I think about starting a MMO again I can't help but remember how much commitment it took, commitment that I don't have the free time for anymore, and commitment I am not willing to dedicate to something so repetitive with little story or skill involved.
That was a very interesting and deep post but the fact of the matter is there is no replacement for mmorpg's but having to play another mmog.
If you fuck up on a soccer field you have to deal with bad looks and unhelpful comments from team mates.
In a game you say screw this turn it off or fix the problem.
Life is too short to throw away things you love and if you love mmogs so much do not throw them away.
Prioritize a bit i mean I'd throw away computer all together for my girl but for some other the situation might be different, find out how important MMORPG's are to you and figure out what # they are on your list.
I don't plan on playing games forever but I'm still a kid trying to live my life and do thing a kid should be doing or better yet what i want to do.
Do not live your life as a drone , live your life not somebody elses and don't listen to what anyone says except when you need to.
One quote that has always kept my life on track.
"One mans junk is another mans treasure, as life continues it may create several different paths. Many much different to others but all still have the same main road leading to your final destination..... death"
Which practically means were all different but all the same, live your life the way you want to because eventually you end up in the same place as everybody else.
Time you enjoyed wasting isn't wasted time =P
Well theres my 2 cents in my own topic
But back could i get a clear answer on a simple question.
That was a very interesting and deep post but the fact of the matter is there is no replacement for mmorpg's but having to play another mmog. If you fuck up on a soccer field you have to deal with bad looks and unhelpful comments from team mates. In a game you say screw this turn it off or fix the problem. Life is too short to throw away things you love and if you love mmogs so much do not throw them away. Prioritize a bit i mean I'd throw away computer all together for my girl but for some other the situation might be different, find out how important MMORPG's are to you and figure out what # they are on your list. I don't plan on playing games forever but I'm still a kid trying to live my life and do thing a kid should be doing or better yet what i want to do. Do not live your life as a drone , live your life not somebody elses and don't listen to what anyone says except when you need to. One quote that has always kept my life on track. "One mans junk is another mans treasure, as life continues it may create several different paths. Many much different to others but all still have the same main road leading to your final destination..... death" Which practically means were all different but all the same, live your life the way you want to because eventually you end up in the same place as everybody else. Time you enjoyed wasting isn't wasted time =P Well theres my 2 cents in my own topic But back could i get a clear answer on a simple question. Give me some other MMORPG titles to play please.
This made me feel nostalgic about my own bygone youth....
been playing starcraft since it came out.. and the "spark" is still there ^^ and when you get your own place... maybe your unemployed and shit then you have alot of time to kick back and play... like me haha.. keep the nerd banner high!
I'm reading this book "The road less traveled". great book! In it, he explains something that I immediately related to mmo's. I'll replace the word "skill" with "character" and you'll see. He was talking about middle aged men spending their free time golfing.
"This dedicated effort to improve their "character" serves to give them a sense of progress in life and thereby assists them in ignoring the reality that they have actually stopped progressing, having given up the effort to improve themselves as human beings. If they loved themselves more they would not allow themselves to passionately settle for such a shallow goal and narrow future."
I'm reading this book "The road less traveled". great book! In it, he explains something that I immediately related to mmo's. I'll replace the word "skill" with "character" and you'll see. He was talking about middle aged men spending their free time golfing.
"This dedicated effort to improve their "character" serves to give them a sense of progress in life and thereby assists them in ignoring the reality that they have actually stopped progressing, having given up the effort to improve themselves as human beings. If they loved themselves more they would not allow themselves to passionately settle for such a shallow goal and narrow future."
nuff said..
They just want to have fun. But this is so wrong, right?
That was a very interesting and deep post but the fact of the matter is there is no replacement for mmorpg's but having to play another mmog. If you fuck up on a soccer field you have to deal with bad looks and unhelpful comments from team mates. In a game you say screw this turn it off or fix the problem. Life is too short to throw away things you love and if you love mmogs so much do not throw them away. Prioritize a bit i mean I'd throw away computer all together for my girl but for some other the situation might be different, find out how important MMORPG's are to you and figure out what # they are on your list. I don't plan on playing games forever but I'm still a kid trying to live my life and do thing a kid should be doing or better yet what i want to do. Do not live your life as a drone , live your life not somebody elses and don't listen to what anyone says except when you need to. One quote that has always kept my life on track. "One mans junk is another mans treasure, as life continues it may create several different paths. Many much different to others but all still have the same main road leading to your final destination..... death" Which practically means were all different but all the same, live your life the way you want to because eventually you end up in the same place as everybody else. Time you enjoyed wasting isn't wasted time =P Well theres my 2 cents in my own topic But back could i get a clear answer on a simple question. Give me some other MMORPG titles to play please.
I understand what your saying completely, there is no reason you should throw away something you love so much. However based on your original post it sounded like your love for MMORPGs was dying, and that was why I was making different suggestions. Unfortunatly a MMORPG is a MMORPG so to speak, they all use the same principals with the main differences being a focus of PvE or PvP, along with different art in the games. As to answer your original question heres the list of MMOs I would suggest.
I encourage you to give these games free trials a try (trials for WoW and FFXI can be found at most Gamestops for 2 dollars) However keep in mind that if you try them all out and still find your "gaming spark is dying" I would recomend you to try out other hobbies in a effort to find a new love to replace MMOs.
World of Warcraft - It is your standard PvE kill ten sheep, then kill ten orcs, then kill ten dragons type game. However unlike all the other games on the market WoW presents a level of polish unseen in a MMO, everything in the game works flawlessly and is well balanced for both solo and group play. Also is probably the ideal game for PvP at the moment due to massive battlegrounds that present fair and balanced combat, such as 10v10. None of the 5 on 1 ganking you find in most PvP games. As with all MMOs it is only as time consuming as you make it be, it does not take a magical hold of you like the media claims.
One note I will take is all MMOs in a sense encourage addictive behavior by using the same techniques as casinos do, giving you a set % chance for something to happen when you do a task. Leaving you with the feeling of "Maybe next time will be the time I get lucky". With some MMOs this chance can be as low as 5-10% for completing a task that took you ten hours to do. Yet you will always find people doing it over and over again thinking they will win the "lottery" next time. Of course when you do finally get lucky you are present another task with the same odds and time commitment, this type of thing is most used for "sets" of armor.
Eve - This one takes a bit of getting used to, my friend who saw me play it way back when joked that I was "Playing Microsoft Excel." Probably the game with the most polotics between players, unfortunatly the farther you advance in the game the more you run into people who have got bored of the gameplay and who's sole purpose is now to make your experince worse by killing you when you try to mine or do other tasks. You can only go so far in the game without entering a open PvP zone, and losing your ship means losing a few weeks of work in some cases. For this reason I would say it's quite a bit more hardcore then any other MMO on the market, but if you love polotics this is the game for you.
DDO - In my opinion rivals WoW in the level of polish in the game. Everything is instanced so in that sense it's alot like Guildwars, but with very deep character customization. The downside of DDO is it's very liner with only one starting zone. That means if you take a character to max level, and you get ready to take another character to max level, be prepared to repeat alot of the starting quests you did in the past. DDO is almost exclusivly a PvE game, but has less time commitment then any other MMO on the list.
FFXI or Lineage2 - I group these in the same area since they both require grinding beyond belief, I would stay clear of these unless you are ready to make a huge commitment to get to the point where the real game begins. FFXI being for PvE and L2 being for PvP. Both are great games, but as I said time commitment before fun is painful.
CoH - A MMO that really doesn't take itself to seriously, but if you like comic book heroes and want to design your own can be loads of fun. Very few MMOs where you can do stuff like fly, jump over buildings or go super speed. So has a nice novelty value, the downside though is at least early on you find yourself stopping purse-snatchers about a hundred times over, all of them having the same dialog.
Those are the MMOs that I have personally tried in the past and found to have redeeming qualities.
well, if you managed to quite runescape, Wow will be fine. It's not that addictive.
Will
Playing: Xsyon. Played: Tried: Ultima Online, Everquest 2, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Flyff, Perfect World, Silkroad Online, EVE Online, Ryzom.
You seem smart enough to know the difference reality and game. I personaly dislike WoW but I would recommend it to anyone that wants a high quality product.
If you're looking for Free To Play games, one of the best out there is RISING FORCE ONLINE.
I'm reading this book "The road less traveled". great book! In it, he explains something that I immediately related to mmo's. I'll replace the word "skill" with "character" and you'll see. He was talking about middle aged men spending their free time golfing.
"This dedicated effort to improve their "character" serves to give them a sense of progress in life and thereby assists them in ignoring the reality that they have actually stopped progressing, having given up the effort to improve themselves as human beings. If they loved themselves more they would not allow themselves to passionately settle for such a shallow goal and narrow future."
nuff said..
They just want to have fun. But this is so wrong, right?
fun for a couple hours on the weekend sure.. fun for 8+ hours a day looking to fill a void in your life, no. understand?
Comments
I played most all MMo's and with nothing out there, I have to make a choice to go back to my best D&D Online or try to get away from the time sink. I'm mad as hell with the Warhammer and AoC tease. Why do they advertise years before MMo's come out. Sit back, open up your mind and just read the topics in there forums. You will just see how crazy MMO players are. There assuming start dates, what one is better, computer specs. I think some of them are about to take the bridge over this stuff !!!. I'm no better I just built a $2.000 computer for AoC that was to be released in December and now I'm using it to play WoW again. I would like to play a game in the winter not the summer. What I do now is spend my free time reading mmorpg topics. So i'm just as sick as you people:(
I'm looking into playing an off line game such as Oblivion or Witcher. Maybe just maybe I could reduce the stress of having to be there every night keeping up with my guild's or others at my level on my servers and just enjoy a game instead of watching TV. I asked on an Oblivion forum if it's as good as an MMo and people were comming out of the wood work telling that there stress is reduced by playing off line games.
I should delete mmorpg off my favorites and forget about this crap, but something tells me I'm here to stay a little longer.
Does all this sound like you ? Bet it does !!
OMG, you HAVE to be kidding here. A college degree is mandatory, and NO, you don't need a Masters or higher in many fields. Good luck getting a software engineering job without a college degree. If you somehow manage to get one, most companies won't pay you anywhere near what the college grads are getting paid. I've been an SE for over 10 years and seen almost 0 phd's. Very few grads had their masters, and that only helped them get a slightly (very slight) starting salary. In computer land, experience is everything.
You can easily make 100k+ a year with a 4 year degree in CS (computer science).
I make more then that, work in micro-electronics, and I have no degree. I have a lot of experience but almost all of it, before I got my current job, was hobby work, and I got flown across the country for the interview, my move was payed for, and I live very comfortably. You need to be intelligent and know what your doing, but you don't need a college education to get a good job in this day and age.
In fact a majority of the people I know that make a good living have no college degree. Do the research. I know the corporations and colleges would like you to think a college education is a must for any field, but the fact is, there are actually more people in the high paying sector without a college education, then there are with one. The percentage of college graduates from most universities that don't go on to work in the field within a year is astoundingly high.
A college education can of course steer you in the right direction, but it isn't a necessity for most occupations. But shhh.. nobody wants you to actually know that. To many people make to much money to release such information to the general public.
OMG, you HAVE to be kidding here. A college degree is mandatory, and NO, you don't need a Masters or higher in many fields. Good luck getting a software engineering job without a college degree. If you somehow manage to get one, most companies won't pay you anywhere near what the college grads are getting paid. I've been an SE for over 10 years and seen almost 0 phd's. Very few grads had their masters, and that only helped them get a slightly (very slight) starting salary. In computer land, experience is everything.
You can easily make 100k+ a year with a 4 year degree in CS (computer science).
I make more then that, work in micro-electronics, and I have no degree. I have a lot of experience but almost all of it, before I got my current job, was hobby work, and I got flown across the country for the interview, my move was payed for, and I live very comfortably. You need to be intelligent and know what your doing, but you don't need a college education to get a good job in this day and age.
In fact a majority of the people I know that make a good living have no college degree. Do the research. I know the corporations and colleges would like you to think a college education is a must for any field, but the fact is, there are actually more people in the high paying sector without a college education, then there are with one. The percentage of college graduates from most universities that don't go on to work in the field within a year is astoundingly high.
A college education can of course steer you in the right direction, but it isn't a necessity for most occupations. But shhh.. nobody wants you to actually know that. To many people make to much money to release such information to the general public.
Wow, I'm suprised anyone else knows about that. I dropped out a year ago from school and I have a job that pays $23/hour. And I'm only 17. But then again it's only because I'm really in good shape, I'm large, and I knew the lady who owns this night club that I work at.
Mustache is a cat
That has to go to the vet
Do your taxes now
When you feel your "gaming spark" is dying do not fear, for it is just a phase. Mostly everybody experiences it, give it a few months and you'll have that spark back. Also, there is no such thing as a "perfect MMORPG" and there never will be.
I must say im rather suprised with the amount of comments and help you've guys have supplied and i really appreciate all the help.
If mmorpg.com was a game id play it some of the community is depressed and angry at their dads LOL the larger percentage are really cool and do note i have taken every comment into consideration.
What i don't get is gaming developers spend millions of dollars on finding out what gamers want?
They think they know what we want?
Why don't they recruit people that are gamers and get their ideas, players that like pvp...players that like roleplaying and put it all into 1 game?
Who knows as stated on one of the comments over 40% of games have a similar interface to WoW.
Im just going to have to find a clone game
Also i would be willing to pay per month if the game has a good community.
Thanks for everyones replies
Meh a gaming spark dying example.
You start in the days of Legacy of the Ancients jumping through paintings, play Eye of the Beholder and draw your own map while exploring it.
You play Phantasy 3 and 4 over and over again cause you love it. Or you put your manuals and boxes in places you don't think light will damage it or you feel the upmost paranoid about saving it from harm.
Flash forward and today when you play a single player game you shelve it the first time you beat it. Or you take a break from any game for that matter for days at a time, come back to it later, or those days become more and more away.
Meh that's going from loving gaming to losing enthusiasm for it. Don't know what made me play more but I seem to be back to playing everyday know. Was worried for a few there.
AC2 Player RIP Final Death Jan 31st 2017
Refugee of Auberean
Refugee of Dereth
A MMO hasn't has to be perfect. It just has to not be flawed beyond comon sense.
As long as the devs feels they are unworthy and leeching money they don't deserve, they will enforce bad gameplays on us. First, have to restore devs ego.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
You're tired of gaming and in you're only in your teens? Try gaming for 30+ years bud=) I've yet to be bored and hopefully never will. I'm glad I've been around to see games go from Pong and Space Invaders to Crysis. Can't wait until we're jacking them right into our skulls=) If the spark is dying this early, thats a shame.
One thing people need to remember.. the people that post in forums like this and in game forums represent a very small percentage of the people that pay to play MMOs. Generally we are passionate, opinionated, and REALLY like to listen to ourselves talk.. but we are not representative of larger PAYING population of gamers.
I'm sure many developers care about their loyal playerbase and care about staying true to the "vision" they have for their games.... but I ASSURE you they care more about putting money in the bank. And as soon as business becomes more important than artistic integrity in ANYTHING, quality goes downhill. Simple truth is you have to dumb stuff down to feed it to the masses, and MMOs are in the process of going very mainstream.
The reason so many games look like WoW is because it works. Tons of people play it.. it's easy and addictive. If someone is looking to develop a new game and they can rip off a formula that works instead of taking a risk on somthing untested, they will.
There are plenty of other examples of the sacrifice of art in entertainment to the altar of the idiot consumer's dollar.. The show "Firefly" gets cancelled while "Joe Millionaire" goes to #1 in the television ratings. The entire US is enthralled by a bunch of mediocre karaoke singers on "American Idol," meanwhile you can't find a decent rock, hip hop, or country band ANYWHERE in popular culture (have you seen the grammy nominees this year? It's pathetic...)
I think the "spark" that many people are starting to miss is the old feeling that we were part of a special group that was doing something unique and innovative... and honestly MMOs were something completely new when they came out. But now the masses are coming and the devs can smell the dollars. Rare is the person who can stay true to his vision when a very simple moral/ artistic compromise will make them a huge pile of cash. So I fear the overwhelming trend will be toward bland, easily accessible, dumbed-down games from now on.
To be genius is to be misunderstood, and misunderstood people rarely get rich.
deviliscious: (PS. I have been told that when I use scientific language, it does not make me sound more intelligent, it only makes me sound like a jackass. It makes me appear that I am not knowledgable enough in the subject I am discussing to be able to translate it for people outside the field to understand. Some advice you might consider as well)
Actually, the quality of MMOs has risen dramatically. But I keep forgetting how people equate bug ridden, imbalanced, exploitable game play, with lousy graphics, even lousier art direction, a complete lack of intuitive control and UIs and no content to speak of, as quality.
I'd put the quality and care taken in WOW"s developement over the utter technical nightmares UO and EQ were any day of the week. Since I never had any interest in living a virtual life, early MMOs had no quality to speak of because the gameplay sucked horribly. Early MMOs were experiments with people loving them because there were no expectations. I've yet to meet any person face to face who could go back to those days after playing MMOs of today. The gameplay was THAT bad. The glory days only seemed glorious, because the actually quality of the product was so in the basement, there was no where to go but up. Its like popping in an emulator of Doom after playing Crysis and lying to yourself how great a game it is by todays standards.
But that happens with everything
Tapedecks>CD walkmans>MP3s>Ipod Videos
Video>Dvds>HD>Blu Ray
Sega>Super Nintendo>N64>PS>PS2>Xbox>Xbox 360
Its the future you can't avoid it like ive already got one of those holographic keyboards....
Word of warning dont buy one as of yet they have a few texture and sensitity bugs to be soughted
You missed my point.. I was talking more about the feel of a game. I cringe that I am about to use this analogy, but I'm tired and it's the first thing that comes to mind: Go watch the first low-budget, cheaply produced Star Wars with a cast of unknowns.. it is still a great movie. Now go watch one of the later state of the art, unlimited budget Star Wars movies with a star-studded cast... they sucked.. HARD.
Technical perfection is obviously what all developers should shoot for, but when developers stop taking innovative risks to push into new territory in order to make "safe, stable, and widely marketable games," the organic feel (and energy) of the game are often lost as the game becomes more polished.
In all honesty, Eve online had bugs that made me want to pull my hair out. All the time. Even BIG bugs that kept me from logging in or made my machine CTD a couple times per session. But the game was SO GOOD I stayed with it.. for almost four years. The devs at CCP have stayed true to their one-world vision, never sharded the server, never reduced the death penalty... never done stuff that would have gotten them tons of new subscribers but RUINED THE GAME IN THE PROCESS.
When I took a break from Eve to play WoW I really was impressed with the look, feel, and stability of the game.. but the complete lack of depth and intensity (compared to Eve at least) had me bored to the point of quitting in 2 months. It was like watching one of those giant. expensive, star-studded hollywood blockbusters where you realize halfway through the movie that you couldn't care less about the characters or the story.
I'll take bug-ridden, messy , outdated, fun and innovative games over perfectly polished, dumbed-down crap and day of the week.
deviliscious: (PS. I have been told that when I use scientific language, it does not make me sound more intelligent, it only makes me sound like a jackass. It makes me appear that I am not knowledgable enough in the subject I am discussing to be able to translate it for people outside the field to understand. Some advice you might consider as well)
I get what your saying..
But i have to find a new game either way
The other games i have played have all fallen apart i just want a fresh start
I trialed EVE out its just seemed they make it too complicated where it could be so much simpler its like one of those you get it or you dont games
I think your issue is that you choose very repetitive games with extremely limited gameplay. I'm 19, almost 20, and still gaming, but I tend to avoid most of the modern games, especially asian MMORPGs, as they tend to be extremely grind centric, and grind is bad. I'd recommend waiting for a game that focuses more on player vs player conflict or at the very least that gives you a choice to do something other than kill monsters to level up and get better items.
Wow, probably my first post in about a year, but I think this is worth throwing my 2 cents into. Anyways, I hit a point where you were at during my teen years as well. I had a active social life, had friends, all that stuff, and was also a avid player of MMOs.
However as you continue to get older your free time is going to become few and far between. If you get a job you won't be able to attend those 6 hour grinding sessions after school for example. Yet you know if you miss out on those consistently you won't keep up with the rest of your guild.
As your social and professional life continue to grow you will start to have to do stuff like take phone calls on the spot, either from work or the person you are dating. This is where the real flaw to playing a MMORPG comes out, there is no pause button, it's not like a single player game where you can press start, hang up the controler and come back to it in 20 minutes. Nope 20 minutes idle in a MMO espically if you are in a group means you probably will get killed off and not invited back to the group. Unfortunatly this creates a situation where the game controls you rather then you control the game.
I think this is why so many peoples social lifes suffer on account of MMOs. Also as others have stated most MMOs are very repetitive, think about back when you were a kid for a moment. When you were a kid you probably watched some very redundent cartoons (Loony Toons, Tom and Jerry or Scooby Doo for example) as you started to mature these cartoons started to bore you. The solution to this was simple since you just move onto more mature cartoons such as Comic book heroes or Anime type ones. Or you started watching the shows with real actors like 24, Firefly, Heroes, ect.
People tend to think of MMOs as the epitomy of gaming and I think that couldn't be farther from the truth. While they do have their place in the gaming industry perhaps you are ready to make the move from "cartoons" to "real actors" in a sense. There seems to be three directions you can go from here.
If you like the player vs enviroment present in MMOs then single player RPGs will be a ideal solution, they have all the stuff you liked about a MMO with leveling up and custom gear, but they acually have a real story to them. And I am not talking about a kill ten orcs story, I am talking about stories like those found in final fantasy ten that are intense enough to make you cry at the sad parts of the story.
If you like the competitive aspect of MMOs you might want to try board games that are based purely on skill, Go or Chess come to mind right off the bat. Along with these there are other competitive, but not as skill intense table top games like Trading card games, D&D minis, war games like warhammer, ect (but watch out these get expensive fast!) However the nice part about these is they tend to be the least time consuming of the bunch, you just have one night a week you attend a game shop, or a event.
Now I think this one will apply the most to you, if you like the social aspect of MMOs you should consider trying out for one of your school's sports teams. If you thought the teamwork required in a raid was intense wait til you get out on a soccer field, you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of every member of your team inside and out in order to truely be a great player. I know most don't think of sports as being games, but they like any game have a set of rules and a set of goals, your just using your entire body instead of a keyboard and a mouse.
Well there we go, my post about "What's a gamer to do after MMOs" As for me I have been MMO free for about a year now, maybe a bit more. I still think about them alot, and keep MMORPG.com and it's forums on my list of links for news in the gaming world. But for everytime I think about starting a MMO again I can't help but remember how much commitment it took, commitment that I don't have the free time for anymore, and commitment I am not willing to dedicate to something so repetitive with little story or skill involved.
That was a very interesting and deep post but the fact of the matter is there is no replacement for mmorpg's but having to play another mmog.
If you fuck up on a soccer field you have to deal with bad looks and unhelpful comments from team mates.
In a game you say screw this turn it off or fix the problem.
Life is too short to throw away things you love and if you love mmogs so much do not throw them away.
Prioritize a bit i mean I'd throw away computer all together for my girl but for some other the situation might be different, find out how important MMORPG's are to you and figure out what # they are on your list.
I don't plan on playing games forever but I'm still a kid trying to live my life and do thing a kid should be doing or better yet what i want to do.
Do not live your life as a drone , live your life not somebody elses and don't listen to what anyone says except when you need to.
One quote that has always kept my life on track.
"One mans junk is another mans treasure, as life continues it may create several different paths. Many much different to others but all still have the same main road leading to your final destination..... death"
Which practically means were all different but all the same, live your life the way you want to because eventually you end up in the same place as everybody else.
Time you enjoyed wasting isn't wasted time =P
Well theres my 2 cents in my own topic
But back could i get a clear answer on a simple question.
Give me some other MMORPG titles to play please.
This made me feel nostalgic about my own bygone youth....
been playing starcraft since it came out.. and the "spark" is still there ^^ and when you get your own place... maybe your unemployed and shit then you have alot of time to kick back and play... like me haha.. keep the nerd banner high!
I'm reading this book "The road less traveled". great book! In it, he explains something that I immediately related to mmo's. I'll replace the word "skill" with "character" and you'll see. He was talking about middle aged men spending their free time golfing.
"This dedicated effort to improve their "character" serves to give them a sense of progress in life and thereby assists them in ignoring the reality that they have actually stopped progressing, having given up the effort to improve themselves as human beings. If they loved themselves more they would not allow themselves to passionately settle for such a shallow goal and narrow future."
nuff said..
They just want to have fun. But this is so wrong, right?
I understand what your saying completely, there is no reason you should throw away something you love so much. However based on your original post it sounded like your love for MMORPGs was dying, and that was why I was making different suggestions. Unfortunatly a MMORPG is a MMORPG so to speak, they all use the same principals with the main differences being a focus of PvE or PvP, along with different art in the games. As to answer your original question heres the list of MMOs I would suggest.
I encourage you to give these games free trials a try (trials for WoW and FFXI can be found at most Gamestops for 2 dollars) However keep in mind that if you try them all out and still find your "gaming spark is dying" I would recomend you to try out other hobbies in a effort to find a new love to replace MMOs.
World of Warcraft - It is your standard PvE kill ten sheep, then kill ten orcs, then kill ten dragons type game. However unlike all the other games on the market WoW presents a level of polish unseen in a MMO, everything in the game works flawlessly and is well balanced for both solo and group play. Also is probably the ideal game for PvP at the moment due to massive battlegrounds that present fair and balanced combat, such as 10v10. None of the 5 on 1 ganking you find in most PvP games. As with all MMOs it is only as time consuming as you make it be, it does not take a magical hold of you like the media claims.
One note I will take is all MMOs in a sense encourage addictive behavior by using the same techniques as casinos do, giving you a set % chance for something to happen when you do a task. Leaving you with the feeling of "Maybe next time will be the time I get lucky". With some MMOs this chance can be as low as 5-10% for completing a task that took you ten hours to do. Yet you will always find people doing it over and over again thinking they will win the "lottery" next time. Of course when you do finally get lucky you are present another task with the same odds and time commitment, this type of thing is most used for "sets" of armor.
Eve - This one takes a bit of getting used to, my friend who saw me play it way back when joked that I was "Playing Microsoft Excel." Probably the game with the most polotics between players, unfortunatly the farther you advance in the game the more you run into people who have got bored of the gameplay and who's sole purpose is now to make your experince worse by killing you when you try to mine or do other tasks. You can only go so far in the game without entering a open PvP zone, and losing your ship means losing a few weeks of work in some cases. For this reason I would say it's quite a bit more hardcore then any other MMO on the market, but if you love polotics this is the game for you.
DDO - In my opinion rivals WoW in the level of polish in the game. Everything is instanced so in that sense it's alot like Guildwars, but with very deep character customization. The downside of DDO is it's very liner with only one starting zone. That means if you take a character to max level, and you get ready to take another character to max level, be prepared to repeat alot of the starting quests you did in the past. DDO is almost exclusivly a PvE game, but has less time commitment then any other MMO on the list.
FFXI or Lineage2 - I group these in the same area since they both require grinding beyond belief, I would stay clear of these unless you are ready to make a huge commitment to get to the point where the real game begins. FFXI being for PvE and L2 being for PvP. Both are great games, but as I said time commitment before fun is painful.
CoH - A MMO that really doesn't take itself to seriously, but if you like comic book heroes and want to design your own can be loads of fun. Very few MMOs where you can do stuff like fly, jump over buildings or go super speed. So has a nice novelty value, the downside though is at least early on you find yourself stopping purse-snatchers about a hundred times over, all of them having the same dialog.
Those are the MMOs that I have personally tried in the past and found to have redeeming qualities.
well, if you managed to quite runescape, Wow will be fine. It's not that addictive.
Will
Playing: Xsyon.
Played:
Tried: Ultima Online, Everquest 2, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Flyff, Perfect World, Silkroad Online, EVE Online, Ryzom.
You seem smart enough to know the difference reality and game. I personaly dislike WoW but I would recommend it to anyone that wants a high quality product.
If you're looking for Free To Play games, one of the best out there is RISING FORCE ONLINE.
They just want to have fun. But this is so wrong, right?
fun for a couple hours on the weekend sure.. fun for 8+ hours a day looking to fill a void in your life, no. understand?
Have you checked out iTunes, there's some excellent [gaming] podcasts out there. As well as some stinkers too.
No annoying animated GIF here!