How to Choose an MMO

[gothwalk]

Originally published at Now Is A Long Time Too. You can comment here or there.

Normally, my ramblings about MMOs end up on dukestreet.org, but this is literally just some thinking on what I want to play. I’m coming to the end of my interest in World of Warcraft, at least until the next expansion. The only real reason that I haven’t announced stopping is that I still owe a guildmate the best end of a thousand gold, and I want to grind that and pay it off. I’ll no doubt be back at the time of the next expansion, or if other games don’t hold my interest, because WoW is a good game - just the endgame is dull.
The game I’d really like to play is EVE Online. However, while I know a few people who play, nobody I know well is interested in that kind of strategy-tactics-logistics sci-fi game. Now, EVE is a game you can play casually and enjoy, logging in once in a few days to run a mission or do some trading. And since you can train skills whether you’re on or offline, you don’t lose much in the character advancement thing. But MMOs are social games, and while I’m a solo player by instinct, I prefer to have a guild (or corp, in EVE) there to talk to and occasionally exchange help with. I’m currently on a five-day free play bonus there, and I’m considering resubbing.
LotRO is where most of the people I know, and indeed, the core group I played with in WoW, are ending up (look for the Wild Geese kinship on Laurelin). LotRO is pretty, casual-friendly, has crafting, and hasn’t much raiding. It’s also going to have player housing later this year (currently expected around October). Given the presence of those people on LotRO, I’m defintely going to be playing it going forward. Also, it’s an excellent game.
WAR (Warhammer: Age of Reckoning) is coming soon, and it looks like it’s going to be a stonking game. If there were people I knew playing that, it could possibly draw my attention.

The decision I’m really having to make here is whether I want to have a second-string MMO, since LotRO takes the top spot. I’m not always certain I have enough time for my current stable of tabletop games and one MMO, and a second might be silly. On the other hand, I really enjoy playing EVE, more so than any other game out there.

Comments

[giftederic.livejournal.com]

I've been on Eve now for about 6 weeks and a few of us are steadily making progress. The other lads in the corp have been playing for a few months now. There are a few well known irish gamers around too for various lengths of time. The corp is based out of Poinen 3:16, though several of us operate in our home space. (I am playing Minmatar). The plan is for us to start meeting up regularly in the game to do level III missions etc. (That's all we're really capable of at the moment :). There is alot of interest in Eve at the moment. I have gotten several queries about it lately.

It would be really, really good to have you onboard, but be warned, we are serious noobs :)

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I have forgotten most of what I knew, to be honest, and even my main is not well developed. But give me a character name to contact (or look for Atrakus), and I'll be very happy indeed to join up. An corp containing people I know makes a definite difference in my attitude to staying in the game. :)

[aidian.livejournal.com]

i used to play eve. it was super gorgeous - and completely obnoxious to play. i found solo and small corp play to be extremely difficult, and in general life as a noob to be extremely unbalanced. Money was -everything-. It was like spendable XP, handed out in miniscule quantities. For combat, only the uber-rich came out on top, because it's all equipment-based. Stats, i found, were worth just slightly more than squat. i left the game quite annoyed. there was also a sizeable "kill new players" and small-time pirate contingent that was real frustrating. the bigger corps really didn't have any interest in patrolling or maintaining peace near the cores, and the AI "police" were pretty much worthless. it was quite disappointing all in all.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Well, it is an economic game. The XP side of things is actually free, being just time spent training skills.

I'm not sure when you were playing, but these days, unless you're venturing directly in 0.0 space, anything above 0.5 is perfectly safe, and with the Warp to 0km function in place, you can get through even low-security space in fair safety for purposes of trading.

The one and only time I've been ganked was pre-warp-to-zero, when I went sailing into a 0.1 sec system with an unarmed industrial ship to collect a delivery contract, and - understandably - got it shot out from under me.

The character generation has been improved immensely in recent expansion patche, and new characters now come out fairly well-skilled in one or two areas, and well able to compete.

[aidian.livejournal.com]

i was playing in, oh, 2003 maybe? i think the warp to 0 function was added a bit after I quit playing. I dunno if the maps have changed at all, but I recall important major areas being linked by low-sec space (unless you literally wanted to spend -all day- doing a wide circle around the galaxy on relatively minor noob missions). Gatecampers were extremely common. Guys in big ships would lurk by those connecting points and blast the shit out of anyone and everyone, but particularly small noobish ships, combat or not. I wish I could remember teh seclevel of the areas this happened in - I don't think it was even as low as .1, maybe even .4-.6 - a lot of times the AI "police" were worse than useless. Can raiders/killers also abounded. It seemed there were a lot more folks interested in playing "bad guy". The whole thing struck me as an extremely good example of how a neo-libertarian might-make-right system would rape pretty much everyone who didn't have the might right away. It -was- interesting, aside from these issues. and fking pretty. i always remember the pretty. i love space.


I understand there have been -some- changes, but I'm still extremely wary of eve on the whole. Hearing about the developer shenanigans doesn't help, either.