Impossible game?

Lerxst · December 2010

I know other threads have a smattering of details I would look for in a game. I thought I would create this and see what came of it.

I'm an old-timer MUD player. I'm used to harsh, open PvP, full-loot and what not. When UO came out, it was a dream come true. Now, fast forward several years and WoW along with its clones, have taken over the scene. It's difficult to find games that capture that same open feel UO had to it when it was released.

My problem with some of the newer games that promised these things is that all they did were promise them; when it came time to deliver, they were bug-ridden piles of trash. (Mortal Online, I'm looking at you)

I want _need a game that will fill the void WoW left me with and the disappointment MO scarred me with. I have one or two in mind, but I wanted to post here first before getting the "fanboy" responses on their own forums.

Here are some criteria:

Game has to have an active, wide-spread player base. I'm sick and tired of trying out games only to be the only n00b in the starter city for the first week (Pirates of the Burning Sea). For this reason, I move on to point 2...

Game would ideally be fairly new. I started playing DAOC a few months after its release and I was in a crowded city full of players... I loved it. The same with WoW. I went back to Asheron's Call years ago, after leaving for a year and turned out to be the only player in a desolate ghost town of NPC's.

F2P games are just pure evil! I don't want my experience to feel like one giant commercial.

Free trials are a good start - I don't mind spending money on a game if I can see what I'm in for at least in the short-term. That's how Eve got me hooked.

Some games I've played that came close:

Eve. On the surface that game has everything I want, but something is just off about not playing a game and waiting to advance. When I realized I was playing Desktop Tower Defense more than Eve, waiting for my character to learn the next skill that would make the game more interesting, I cancelled my account. I want to be able to actually play the game I'm playing, not just sit with a set amount of time for some form of advancement.

Mortal Online had everything I wanted in an MMO in theory. Then they screwed it up as soon as they charged a full retail price for alpha testing a game... and I was a sucker.

Darkfall - I don't know. I played it. I enjoyed it. The game just seemed very empty and incomplete once I really started to get into it. Unless things have changed, I also saw the lack of a skill cap as a major flaw - everyone would just grind until they were all the same.

Fallen Earth - This one was fun, but it soon became obvious it was too linear. You were always forced to move on to the next location once you used up all the quests and purchased/crafted all there was in a certain area. Then you enter the next region and it starts all over again while you and everyone around you do the same exact thing.

Conquer Online is just plain NO! See my note about F2P games.

Mount & Blade/Warband - Yeah, I know the MMO aspect is entirely FPS based. Still, you take the single player verison, make it an MMO and you would have one of the best games out IMO.

Games that fell far from the mark:

Rift (I'm currently in beta), but that is too "Carebearish" for my tastes. I might as well just be playing WoW.

Age of Conan - Played in its first few months of release and it was not that bad, but still much too linear and then I hit a brick wall in advancement around level 35. It was as if the devs just threw up their arms and gave up developing anything at that point.

WoW... ugggggghhhhh.

Games in question:

Perpetuum, is one I'm considering but have heard mixed reviews about that one. I've been burned by indie developers in the past, and I'm not eager to stick my neck (or wallet) out there again.

WURM - Ok, I have a secret addiction to Minecraft and realize this game was its predecessor. This game looks like it will appeal to that aspect of my personality. It's old though... almost 5 years at this point. Does anyone play it and will I stand a chance starting this late in?

So I'm afraid I'm looking for the impossible. Basically, a new, contemporary version of Ultima Online. Any ideas?

PS - Crafting is also a bonus!

Greymoor · December 2010

MO bad choice, decent potential and vision but no implementation yet. Maybe in the future.

Eve, very boring in my opinion. This links into perpetuum, it also has the same level of boring thrown in.

Darkfall, I'd give it a second shot and join a helpful Clan straight away. The character development appears shallow on the surface because as you said everyone can have everything but in practise with more experienced groups you'll instantly see people have different roles and use different sets of abilties. The destroyer, mage killer, mage hunter and other specialisations have helped with that issue also.

Plenty more PvE to do in DFO now than before, it's all about getting into an active Clan.

Archeage might have what you're looking for but there's no publisher/release for US/Europe yet. I'm not 100% if that's full loot however.

Sid_Vicious · December 2010

I may get flamed for saying this but I think that Darkfall Online is better now in its current state than Ultima Online is by faaaaar.

Ultima Online was fun but it didn't get the heart jumping quite like this game does. Its something about the immersion? I mean some things about this game would probably give some people heart attacks . ... lol

Get into intense fights wearing your best stuff that last for hours when a simple mistake will end it all . .. and then youll know what I am talking about.

It takes months to learn how to extend fights but its the necessary strategy if you are losing. You can extend them into other zones . .. into other battlegrounds that you are more familiar with as well. The game changes when you learn how to survive for a lot longer and rarely die but the rush is always there more than other MMORPGs because of the fast-paced combat with everything you are carrying on the line.

No floating names, numbers, quest-markers, or any other fluff while you are forced into 1st person sometimes. The game feels a lot more real than Ultima Online ever did for me . .. I mean seriously log into it right now and then log into Darkfall. I can still play old games and love them but its hard to match against the games that are still developing in 2010.

I know that Darkfall doesn't have a skill cap and that is a problem for you, but I am saying from experience that it is worth it. When you die, you die because you failed somehow in controlling your character in this game. In many other games out there, you die because you chose the wrong class or its a rock/paper/scissors where you beat some classes easily and get killed by others easily . .. also, Darkfall has FPS combat. Its not nearly as fun being restricted with this type of gameplay. There is no other game that has ever allowed me to use this many keys during FPS combat and let me tell you it is really fun. They are adding on optional classes that you can opt out of so you will never have to reroll because you ended up with something gimped. You have one character per account. It already feels different fighting different people. I still feel like I am playing the class that I originally wanted to be (kiting-tank). The magic that I do cast is fun as hell to use though! It doesn't make me feel any less warrior in the long run. You end up finding something that works for you and learning from that. Everybody fights a little differently, even if they have all the same spells but its because there are so many spells to use and so many ways that you can use them . ...

When it comes down to it you can still play a ranger or a warrior or a mage kind of. People just use what they enjoy using if it keeps working for them.

Lerxst · December 2010

Thanks so far. You have me tempted to go back and try Darkfall. There's a hitch though...

I haven't logged into that game for over a year. With the way the skill system works, I will always be lagging behind everyone else in the game who had been playing regardless of whether they were grinding or just flat out playing. I forgot what the numbers were, but in UO, you could log in at any point in the distant future and still see people in the same zones as you with the same skill levels as you since the cap made people shift and juggle skills.

I know if I were to log in today, I would never be able to be a crafter, for instance. I mean, I could, but it would be a futile effort seeing as anyone who stayed with the game for the past year will forever and always be out-crafting me until the end of time. The other skills would pretty much be the same.

I was just starting to work on my combat skills when I left, having gotten a couple of my gathering skills to 100%. I don't imagine I would stand much of a chance in combat... or crafting.

One question though. How are the starter towns - populated or barren? Maybe if there were some other newbies around I woudl be a bit more willing to give it another go.

Greymoor · December 2010

Originally posted by Lerxst
Thanks so far. You have me tempted to go back and try Darkfall. There's a hitch though...

I haven't logged into that game for over a year. With the way the skill system works, I will always be lagging behind everyone else in the game who had been playing regardless of whether they were grinding or just flat out playing. I forgot what the numbers were, but in UO, you could log in at any point in the distant future and still see people in the same zones as you with the same skill levels as you since the cap made people shift and juggle skills.

I know if I were to log in today, I would never be able to be a crafter, for instance. I mean, I could, but it would be a futile effort seeing as anyone who stayed with the game for the past year will forever and always be out-crafting me until the end of time. The other skills would pretty much be the same.

I was just starting to work on my combat skills when I left, having gotten a couple of my gathering skills to 100%. I don't imagine I would stand much of a chance in combat... or crafting.

One question though. How are the starter towns - populated or barren? Maybe if there were some other newbies around I woudl be a bit more willing to give it another go.

What you're saying isn't true. You'd get competitive in a couple to a few months and you would catch up, there's a cap to every single skill. Crafters don't get any better than 100 trueforge and it's not an impossible task.

Join a Clan like NEW, they aid new players and have plenty of new guys trying to level up together.

Sid_Vicious · December 2010

Originally posted by Greymoor

Originally posted by Lerxst

Thanks so far. You have me tempted to go back and try Darkfall. There's a hitch though...

I haven't logged into that game for over a year. With the way the skill system works, I will always be lagging behind everyone else in the game who had been playing regardless of whether they were grinding or just flat out playing. I forgot what the numbers were, but in UO, you could log in at any point in the distant future and still see people in the same zones as you with the same skill levels as you since the cap made people shift and juggle skills.

I know if I were to log in today, I would never be able to be a crafter, for instance. I mean, I could, but it would be a futile effort seeing as anyone who stayed with the game for the past year will forever and always be out-crafting me until the end of time. The other skills would pretty much be the same.

I was just starting to work on my combat skills when I left, having gotten a couple of my gathering skills to 100%. I don't imagine I would stand much of a chance in combat... or crafting.

One question though. How are the starter towns - populated or barren? Maybe if there were some other newbies around I woudl be a bit more willing to give it another go.

What you're saying isn't true. You'd get competitive in a couple to a few months and you would catch up, there's a cap to every single skill. Crafters don't get any better than 100 trueforge and it's not an impossible task.

Join a Clan like NEW, they aid new players and have plenty of new guys trying to level up together.

Sorry let me clarify.

There is a skill cap 100 and for stats is 110. I meant its not like UO or MO where the more you use one skill, another skill is lowered. So in theory you could unlock everything and use it to 100. Diminishing returns are extreme in the game which is why you will catch up to people who have played for more than a year. Back before you played, people were working on skills that are no longer as useful so you really there is no good reason to think that you need everything that someone else has. You basically use what you want but it comes down to using melee and a ranged attack. There are archers but more popular are mages. The fire school is most popular because many of their spells shoot opponents into the air so its great to mix it with other schools. Water just started becoming a lot more popular. There are prestige classes coming out sometime but rest assured, you will never have to reroll and to be honest everyone who grinds for everything keeps getting nerfed. Just focus on skilling up some powerful ranged attacks and melee while the rest is optional. Healing is very difficult but extremely helpful.

As far as crafting goes, people usually get it to be able to replace the stuff that they lose easier so most people are not trying to make money from it. Trading is probably the biggest money maker but you need to invest lots of gold in order to see good returns. Competing with other crafters doesn't matter if you just want to be able to make stuff for people and be useful. People will always need stuff crafted since they drop everything carried when dying. The crafting grind costs a lot of money. I think that it is fun to do honestly, and think that if you are looking for a game to play for years, definitely pick it up and get started (the more you craft/harvest, the more stats your character gains which is the biggest grind in the game outside of enchanting). Enchanting is very fun to do imo because it motivates you to travel the world more and explore areas that you normally wouldnt be exploring unless curious. The most difficult crafting to raise would be weaponsmithing and enchanting. If you are going to craft, I recommend making a bunch of rank 0s (good for skilling up on mobs so they wont go to waste and they are cheap to make) until you hit 75 weaponsmithing and then make rank 30s that you can enchant into transmuted weapons. Enchanted weapons can make some great profit in PVE, for example, you could make yourself a firebow and a big fireaxe before going out to face the ice golem.

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