Thoughts on MMO(RPG)s?

[hinorashi]

Have you played any MMO or MMORPGs? Any you're currently playing? What are your opinion of some?

I've been playing some MMORPGs lately. It's pretty tough to look for decent ones, especially those that are free. It's either grindy or they require pay items in order to have an advantage. I don't mind it so much if it doesn't require premium items or they're purely aesthetic.

One thing I've noticed is that one of their main aspects is social play. It's less fun to try and solo than playing with a team. Generally speaking, I usually play with a small group of friends. It usually starts to fall apart when people stop signing on ( and you're stuck, let's say, without a healer ).

Here are my thoughts on some I've played recently.

Ragnarok Online: The class system in this game is pretty fun. It can avoid being grindy depending on the exp rate of the server. It's not as active as it used to be.

Grand Fantasia: To me, it felt like a 3d version of Ragnarok Online. It's not bad, but leveling up felt especially grindy. Combat is pretty simple to get the hang of. The majority of quests are simply "kill X monsters". If you have friends to play it with, it can be fun. The plain vanilla quests get boring if you're playing along.

Mabinogi: The most recent one I've tried. The combat system takes a while to learn and can be very difficult as first ( especially as a spellcaster ), but it's pretty deep. Additionally, it lacks a solid class system so you're able to build your own character ( aside from the talent or destiny you pick ). Quests are pretty decent as well and it's the main way to gain exp since grinding is discouraged with a camping penalty.

[Quadcentruo]

The most recent MMORPG I've played is Maplestory (which I haven't played for a little while now, 6 months at least). If you can get past the childish-looking visuals, it's a pretty solid MMORPG. The class system is rather basic; you get 5 different "stories" to choose from - Adventurer, Rebel, a legion of knights (can't remember the name for this story), and two different Arons (can't remember the exact name of this either). From then, you can choose what class you want from either a Warrior, Wizard, Archer, Thief, or Pirate based class. Depending on the Story path you chose affects which abilities a class can have and in the Aron's case affect which class you can choose. Each class has a few different play styles (unless you are a Rebel), meaning, for example, a Wizard can use basic spells until they reach a certain level to upgrade their class (which every class can upgrade after a certain level) in which they can choose to use different sets of spells (choosing two from either lightning, fire, or ice). Each class can upgrade 3 different times, with each upgrade being available at (I believe) level 30, 70, and 110 respectively and each upgrade offering new abilities and skills.

Combat is rather basic as well. Most enemies in the early parts of the game will not attack you unless you attack them first (but they can still hurt you if you touch them), your basic attack with your weapon is set to the Ctrl key and you are given the Shift, Delete, Insert, Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down key to assign consumable items, repeated use items (such as chairs that heal health quicker), and skills. Seeing as the world is like a 2D platforming game, the way you attack is by running up to an enemy and using your basic attack or a skill to attack until you or it falls. Leveling up is incredibly satisfying too, with your health and magic filling up upon leveling along with a jingle upon leveling and a beacon of light shining on you with the words "Level up!" appearing above your head. There will be times where you will grind due to a quest telling you to collect a certain item or if you want some equipment that requires a couple extra levels or some more points in certain stats, but grinding in one area for too long will cause enemies to spawn less in one spawn time and the time between spawns is increased.

It isn't necessarily bad for a free MMORPG, in fact I'd say it's rather fun, but the visuals do make me feel a bit silly when I play it.

[PokeRemixStudio]

I think the best one I've played so far is Club Penguin. The combat system is pretty deep because you can choose where to throw snowballs in your range of view, while making sure to compensate for the delay of the throw animation, movement of other players/objects, and server lag.

I played Grand Fantasia with Hino and it was a click-and-snore. Mabinogi had combat that more resembled actual martial arts.

[JeffTheKiller]

I used to play runescape just to troll people. Now I am waiting for TES Online to come out.

[TediousRamen]

I go MMO hunting a bit.

Maplestory was a grindfest with cookie cutter quests "kill x number of monsters" that required you to kill a lot of monsters. This wouldn't be so bad if there were people willing to help you with the quests.

Runescape has pretty bland gameplay but it looks like they're trying to fix that so that's a plus for Jagex. The quests are better than most MMOs but you don't get most of them unless you're a member.

Dungeons and Dragons Online had pretty fun dungeons and people loved to party up. Unfortunately, leveling up is pretty slow so you have to do the same dungeons and quests multiple times to advance.

Digimon Masters Online was a train wreck. On the surface it looks well made but then you realize that maps are used multiple times right next to each other. The quests are boring and the leveling rate is extremely low.

Haven and Hearth is fun if you like civilization building games and if you don't mind grinding for hours and permadeath.

Adventure Quest isn't even worth writing about.

Aardwolf is your typical MUD with randomly generated quests. The tutorial took 7 hours to complete but it's the kind where you can leave and go back to whenever you want.

Mabinogi is pretty much how Hinorashi put it and I'm currently playing with her.

Sherwood Dungeon is pretty bland. All you can do is fight monsters. Well, actually you can craft weapons using scrolls but by the time you get the materials for the weapon you've already found a better one.

Fallen Earth is actually pretty good. The combat is fun and the game is nice to look at. Sadly if you want to not run out of ammunition and want to get better armor, you have to craft it and getting the materials for crafting takes forever. You could buy the weapons and armor you need but the game almost never gives you money.

Dark Legacy is an MUD I used to play a lot as a kid. It had a cool character creation system and a lot of features. Heck, it even had a little ASCII map wherever you go. I went back to it recently though and apparently they had to move the server. I think that removed the tutorial somehow, I'm not sure but it doesn't have a tutorial anymore, last I checked.

[Fubab_107]

The most I've gotten to an MMO is Global Agenda and Champions Online.

Global Agenda I did enjoy a lot, but never found a group of people to play more with, So I lost interest fast.

Same story with Champions Online. But that one I did stay on longer simply because I liked my hero in it a ton.