[trinibwoy]

Ok. I have never been a fan of MMORPGs with their time and life sucking levelling treadmills and inane repitition but everywhere I look people are hailing WoW as the next coming. So I figure all those people can't be wrong. What I want to know from the seasoned players - is it worth it for me.

My profile is pretty much a young guy with a demanding full-time job, an even more demanding girl and maybe 8 hours of gaming time in a week (mostly on the weekend). Those 8 hours are usually shared between 1-2 single player games and Unreal04, Madden05 and IL2. The whole guild thing isn't really appealing - especially since most guild-joining-peeps probably dedicate a lot more time to gaming than I could.

So in essence, is the soloing experience in WoW going to be worth the $50 + montly subscription for me or is it just slightly less annoying than traditional MMOG's?

[Chalnoth]

Well, with that little time to spend, City of Heroes might be a better MMORPG (hell, you might even be able to get your girl interested in that one....I'd say it's much more doubtful for World of Warcraft).

[OpenGL guy]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Ok. I have never been a fan of MMORPGs with their time and life sucking levelling treadmills and inane repitition but everywhere I look people are hailing WoW as the next coming. So I figure all those people can't be wrong. What I want to know from the seasoned players - is it worth it for me.

My profile is pretty much a young guy with a demanding full-time job, an even more demanding girl and maybe 8 hours of gaming time in a week (mostly on the weekend). Those 8 hours are usually shared between 1-2 single player games and Unreal04, Madden05 and IL2. The whole guild thing isn't really appealing - especially since most guild-joining-peeps probably dedicate a lot more time to gaming than I could.

One thing about WoW is that time spent resting (whether in town or logged off) allows you to earn xp at double the rate for a time. For example, I was out of town for 10 days and when I returned I had enough "double xp time" to make 1.5 levels at lvl 45.

I enjoy the game because my friends are playing and we're all big PvP/FPS players. I don't think the game would be as much fun playing solo.

Just my thoughts.

[The549]

Check out Guild Wars. To me, that game is definitely geared more to people mainly looking for action. You can always bring some ai out to quest with you, and you can go out and do few hour quests with people you just met. It's the least treadmil of all mmorpgs I've played.

[jvd]

One thing about WoW is that time spent resting (whether in town or logged off) allows you to earn xp at double the rate for a time. For example, I was out of town for 10 days and when I returned I had enough "double xp time" to make 1.5 levels at lvl 45.

eq2 has this too . Called vitality system .

[trinibwoy]

Hmmmm thanks for the responses guys. Guess the answer is a unanimous 'NO'

[jvd]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Hmmmm thanks for the responses guys. Guess the answer is a unanimous 'NO'

Any mmorpg is fine .

Just don't expect to hit the end content anytime soon. Read and find a game that you think u can have alot of fun in even when slowly going through lvls .


I know till lvl 20 everquest 2 has tons of quests and you can prob hit lvl 20 in 3 weeks or so just doing the quests you can find around the city .

Coh has a ton of quests too so you can jump on , do a quest and sign off and feel like you did something that day .

[Guden Oden]

I would add my suggestion too towards Guild Wars. Even though it has "guild" in it, there's no real need to play in a guild, and as there's no monthly fee, you don't need to feel like you're getting poor value for your money compared to a more traditional MMORPG.

[Nite_Hawk]

trinibwoy:

I'm almost in exactly the same situation as you. I'm a young guy, have a fairly demanding job, a wife, and maybe a total of 7-8 hours of play time a week (if that). I've been recently playing Anarchy Online with the free subscription, but I'm finding that it's taking way too much time. I've spent several weeks to get to level 20 out of 200!

Like some of the others here, I would strongly suggest getting guild wars when it comes out. I've been doing the beta at the beginning of every month, and it is really a great game. When I've been playing it, I find I end up doing a lot more fighting and questing than other mmorpgs I've tried, and there is really no level grind. You do certainly get more powerful as you gain in levels (you can gain 20 in total), but it's a much more subtle thing than other rpgs. While a level 1 character is pretty weak compared to level 20 characters, they aren't totally useless like in other games.

There are a couple of other aspects that I like about Guild Wars. It requires some skill in choosing spells/techniques depending on the monsters you are facing and the skills/characters of your team mates. Many other games focus on making an "uber character" and after a while you just feel kind of empty playing it because you really have very little input in the outcome of a fight. In Guild Wars it's still fun seeing your character improve or get new items, but I also felt like I had a real role in how the battle was going to turn out, unlike many games these days. Another plus is that the missions are varied have purpose behind them. They aren't just randomly generated delivery quests like in some other games (though it looks like they may be adding side quests that are like this to offer some more variety).

The only thing with guild wars is that the missions can be very long and you can't save in the middle of them, so you need to be able to devote a good hour or two to a single mission. On the plus side, I found that logging on to play one or two missions and then going and doing something else worked very well.

Nite_Hawk

[speng]

Guild Wars or WoW you can't go wrong.

No need for excrutiating time requirement (see: EQ2).

For WoW:
You can log in, choose one of your quests and start doing it. Within 20-40 minutes you will be done and feel great. Depending on your level you could probably do 2-3 quests. You never feel like you need to grind and most quests have some story behind it.

For GW:
You can log in and just do a mission, wait time is normally never long to find a group. Or you can do a solo mission with Henchmen, or start using the new quest system they put in. When you do get high enough, just go to the arena for some quick blood pumping action.

I plan to play both for a change of pace. Especially since GW doesn't have a subscription fee.

Speng.

[jvd]

No need for excrutiating time requirement (see: EQ2).

Thats simply not true .

You may stay longer in a lvl for eq2 , but there is also many quests you can do . Getting from lvl 1-20 shouldn't take more than 2 weeks , 20-30 most likely 3 weeks , 40-50 over a month .

But the things to do also increase . in your 40s there are 8 new zones to vist and 300 quests to do

[Chalnoth]

Well, I don't think EQ2 is as good for comparitively short time investment, though, as it really takes more patience to join and stay in a good exp group. Playing City of Heroes I definitely got more out of 20 minutes or so online.

Truly, if you want to get the most out of EQ2, small time investments are not going to do it.

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Nite_Hawk

Like some of the others here, I would strongly suggest getting guild wars when it comes out. I've been doing the beta at the beginning of every month, and it is really a great game. When I've been playing it, I find I end up doing a lot more fighting and questing than other mmorpgs I've tried, and there is really no level grind. You do certainly get more powerful as you gain in levels (you can gain 20 in total), but it's a much more subtle thing than other rpgs. While a level 1 character is pretty weak compared to level 20 characters, they aren't totally useless like in other games.

Nite_Hawk

Sounds like a plan. I'll give GW a shot since it seems like the best entry point right now. I've been playing KOTOR recently and it has me pumped to try an RPG on a bigger sale I put off playing it for a year and, putting aside the incomprehensibly low frame rates considering the aged engine tech, it truly is an awesome game.

[jvd]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth

Well, I don't think EQ2 is as good for comparitively short time investment, though, as it really takes more patience to join and stay in a good exp group. Playing City of Heroes I definitely got more out of 20 minutes or so online.

Truly, if you want to get the most out of EQ2, small time investments are not going to do it.

well i wont argue that , i could get more out of city of heroes in 10 mins than i could an hour in eq2 .

Of course coh was so swallow then i explored every zone and hit hte lvl cap in a month .

[Chalnoth]

Originally Posted by jvd

Of course coh was so swallow then i explored every zone and hit hte lvl cap in a month .

You had to play it a hell of a lot more than I did, then. I never did hit the level cap (they raised it to 50 by the time I hit 40). They've since raised it to 50, and added advancement beyond 50, so I don't see too much problem with progression in this game.

And being able to explore every zone pretty quickly is, well, expected with a game that focuses primarily on instanced zones (you could possibly explore most zones fairly easily at level 14 if you got fly). If you leveled to 50 that quickly and also did every mission ever offered you, that'd be a bit more impressive. If you played the game more like Everquest, and pretty much stuck with camping with groups in the danger zones, well, I can see why you tired of the game quickly.

[Chalnoth]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

Sounds like a plan. I'll give GW a shot since it seems like the best entry point right now. I've been playing KOTOR recently and it has me pumped to try an RPG on a bigger sale I put off playing it for a year and, putting aside the incomprehensibly low frame rates considering the aged engine tech, it truly is an awesome game.

Yeah, Guild Wars also looks like a great game. And don't forget that KoTOR2 is coming out for the PC at the end of this week

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Chalnoth

Yeah, Guild Wars also looks like a great game. And don't forget that KoTOR2 is coming out for the PC at the end of this week

I'm not playing KOTORII until this time next year - want to make sure it's all nice and patched up first I rarely hop on a game right out the gates - will probably play Doom3 and HL2 later this year.

[cthellis42]

Originally Posted by trinibwoy

I'm not playing KOTORII until this time next year - want to make sure it's all nice and patched up first

Heh. Good point. Has KOTOR itself been patched to proper workability yet? I still hear horror stories...

[jvd]

And being able to explore every zone pretty quickly is, well, expected with a game that focuses primarily on instanced zones (you could possibly explore most zones fairly easily at level 14 if you got fly). If you leveled to 50 that quickly and also did every mission ever offered you, that'd be a bit more impressive. If you played the game more like Everquest, and pretty much stuck with camping with groups in the danger zones, well, I can see why you tired of the game quickly.

I did alot of instant zones . At the time i had done all major archs and a lot of the minor ones . That is the best way for exp .

I beta tested then was in the 3 day trial. I got to 20 in those 3 days , got to 30 in a week after that , got to 40 a week and a half later and hte rest of the time was messing around

[Tim Murray]

KOTOR works like this. "Hey! Combat!

Hey, waitaminute! I'm alone! Where the fuck's my party!?!"

*switches to other party characters*

"THEY'RE STUCK BEHIND A FUCKING CRATE?! I'M SITTING HERE FIGHTING DARK JEDI MASTERS, AND THEY'RE STUCK BEHIND A CRATE?!"

[oi]

I would say that unless you have a passionate interest for the story behind Warcraft (have read the books etc), you should go with Guild Wars. In my mind, GW is sort of like a WoW done right heh.

[L233]

GW is not a MMOPRG.


Anyway, all MMORPGs make pretty crappy single-player games. That's why I think that WoW's concept of having people play alongside each other most of the time instead of cooperatively with each other will fail in the long run.

My WoW Euro Beta char is mid-40s now and I have a hard time motivating myself to log in. It was fun in the beginning but those quests are killing me. It's always the same shit, every bit as repetitive as grinding exp with a group. The latter one at least offers interaction with other players.

What's even worse is that at one point grinding exp solo becomes more time efficient than running quests (for my priest that point is lvl 35+). Since most quests are little more than killing shit with the added downtime of running back to the quest NPCs, it's not that much of a difference anyway.

I think Blizzard tried hard to make WoW a compelling single-player MMORPG but the generic nature of the content in MMORPGs makes this a pretty futile endeavour.

WoW does offer some options for group play (even though they suck most of the time) and the only reason I play is because several of my RL friends play it. So it's really more of a graphical chat client for me.

If you have very little time to dedicate to a MMORPG then you should stay away from them. Playing with a group takes time, even in WoW, and played as single-player games MMORPGs are simply not worth it.

[Randell]

I would suggest you play a single player CPRG, like Bloodlines, Gothic II or Morrowind, cheaper, tighter stories (except Morrowind), play them when you want!

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by cthellis42

Heh. Good point. Has KOTOR itself been patched to proper workability yet? I still hear horror stories...

Well I haven't encountered any serious issues so far - just one crash in 20 hours play. At least there are no broken quests or graphical glitches yet.