Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Where to go...

Right. So, I find myself craving an MMO, as I've said before in the past week or two. And yet, LotRO didn't pan out. I just can't get into it again.

So where to find the food for this hunger? I've been thinking about a few games and going back to them, and maybe some of the rest of you can offer advice on this quandary.

  • Tabula Rasa. It seems like a good idea on the surface. I only stopped playing because I got my 360 and was sidetracked. I only made it to level 23. And the action is both fast-paced and frenetic. Two things that strike my fancy lately. But with every board post I read on multiple TR forums I see a couple of scary complaints. That the game's still quite light on the content in the 40s and especially a level 50, and that with the most recent patch solo-ing really took a downturn due to increased mob difficulty and loot was adjusted to be less plentiful increasing this factor. I'm not sure TR sounds like a good idea, even for the short-term use I need it for.


  • City of Heroes. This one strikes me, mainly because I know it's built from the ground up to be playable in short bursts, they're increasing the leveling speed really soon, and I've only ever been as high as level 15. But the downsides are that the reason I only got to 15 was that the game was way too obviously grindy for my tastes, and that leveling took a horridly long time... how much is the new speed really increasing the leveling pace? I want to make progression, not stagnate.


  • Everquest 2. This game is one I've tried over a half-dozen times to fall in love with. But what happens is that like any normal dating scenario, for the first couple weeks I'm ready to profess my love but by the 3rd or 4th week I'm bored as the game loses some serious focus in the 20-50 area where there's still a lot of the old boring EQ2 present. I'm not sure I can excited about it anymore.


  • Star Wars Galaxies. I think about this one from time to time... then I remember the last time I played it. No more needs to be said. It's a mess, and a what a shame that it is.

  • Pirates of the Burning Sea. I never picked this up, because I was originally going to be working on AoC by early February. Now that the date of my starting has been pushed back to March, I could have a solid couple weeks of PotBS before I had to lose focus. And with PotBS, that's just not long enough. I'm afraid this one will have to wait until I have a good chunk of time to devote. Plus I'd rathr not spend the 50 bones right now.


  • These are the games I've been deliberating over. EVE's not my style. WoW's done until an expansion comes for me, at the very least. FFXI I loathe. LotRO didn't pan out. I mean... what else is there? Please don't say one of the Korean MMOs. Like Darren, I can't stand them.

    I'm lost in a sea of nothing. Something needs to turn up and quick, because this Cold Turkey isn't working out.

    All of this worrying could be avoided if Mythic treated me like Kevin or Hudson and didn't know I was a blogger. Or if Funcom had pity on me and sent me a nice gift. Or if Spellborn sent me a certain e-mail... sigh.

    EDIT: Just read at VN that the % increase of XP in CoH is actually pretty darned good, with one person reporting that he went from 14-20 in one few hour session in a group. Being that I play solo, I'd probably have been able to get from 14 to 16 or so I'm guessing... which is much faster than it used to be. Could CoH be the temp game I'm looking for?

    Anyone who plays the game have any more info on the XP increase that went in this week? HAS it gone in this week, or is the above mentioned person taking about a test server client?

    I need help.

    11 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    I've decided not to play any MMOs. There's no need for me to become further jaded by a lack of diversity in the market.

    I've been playing Civilization 4, Sins of a Solar Empire, TF2, CoD4, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, and a few other games here and there. It's fairly relaxing to know that I'm not wasting a monthly fee playing one game while I would rather be playing another.

    Keen said...

    ^^^

    That was me BTW. No idea why it didn't put my name in there.

    Relmstein said...

    I'm playing Tabula Rasa with a friend on the east coast and we haven't hit any brick walls on content difficulty. Of course he's playing a healing specialist and I'm a commando so maybe thats why. I don't think reducing the drop rate on gear is a problem since there is no binding. Most likely they changed it just to prevent the auctioneer from filling up too quickly.

    As for the higher level problems I do hear a lot of people concentrated on protecting and taking control points in the game to quickly reach max level. Unlike World of Warcraft most of the instances aren't all concentrated at the max level in Tabula Rasa and this was an unpleasant surprise to some. Eventually there is supposed to be some sort of battleground instance for the level 50s to fight each other and that should be fun. Also I do hear raid size instances are being developed.

    Cameron Sorden said...

    Morrowind!

    Bildo said...

    Heh... it'd be Oblivion if anything. Morrowind and I have had our many days in the sun. :)

    As for TR... I'm tied between it and CoH. Leaning towards TR because it does feel like less of a grind than CoH...

    And Keen... Sins absolutely rules. Thanks for your commentary. It made me go get it. But I STILL have that MMO fever right now.

    It has something to do with the game I got to play this past weekend.

    Anonymous said...

    Lineage II needs you! Ha!

    haslo said...

    Personally, I'm holding my breath for Age of Conan - by means of too much WoW I'm a bit burned out by MMOs right now I guess; nothing really caught me for long enough, even TR turned into too much of a grindfest after as early as lvl 25 or so.
    That's just my personal opinion of course and it's waaay less of a grindfest than other MMOs, but that doesn't make it not a grindfest. Particularly once you've seen through the combat mechanics and found the turn-based ones underneath the fancy shooting animations...

    Myself I'm playing mainly Unreal Tournament 3 Warfare/VCTF and Sins of a Solar Empire these days, and I'm mapping for UT3 as well. Nevertheless, there are a couple of other games that are fighting for my attention. I still haven't played through F.E.A.R., Jericho looks nice and cuddly, the newer expansions of Dawn of War, World in Conflict is sitting on my shelf and making pretty screenies, and I'm sure I'd find more if I really wanted to. But my sparse free time is more than filled with those already :P

    kregora said...

    Yeah, I read a lot about the lack of content after level 40, but I am quite not there. In my opinion it helps a lot to try as many different 'classes' as possible. I noticed that they all play totally different, and for me that is a lot of fun for me. At the moment I play 5 different characters between level 18 and 36, and I expect the lot to become 8 in near future - one for each class.

    Unknown said...

    Just a thought, but Mythos has recently been improved with a few more maps and lots of little details that make it a bit more enjoyable. Inevitably, you will see a lot of the maps over and over again, but when I need a quick hack'n'slash session with the possibility of playing with other people (just joined a guild, but I don't know anyone yet) this might be a good one. I can't remember if you've played it or not or if you have a key, but I hvae an extra if you need it.

    Unknown said...

    Wow, I just realized how terrible the second to last sentence was. Forgive me, gods of grammar.

    Gamer Hudson said...

    It's weird you are going through the same thing I went through last year in the summer, read this:

    http://wifeagro.blogspot.com/2007/07/second-mmo-search-continues-with.html

    It all goes in cycles!