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What was your favorite MMORPG in the last 20 years and why?

Salutations, gamers. 
Rogue Raven here, and I was just interested in what everyone's favorite game was in the past few decades and why?  Are these reasons why you are also interested in Ashes of Creation (other than that it is going to be amazing, of course)?  :wink:
Drop me a line!

~Rogue Raven
Thespian Extraordinaire
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Comments

  • I haven't played too much of a variety because I feel super picky when it comes to mmos lol. I guess my favorite is neverwinter because I like the graphics and how it's set up and everything, like camera and UI wise. I don't really like how it's super easy to level then a long long grind to get anything good or to finish campaigns. These aren't necessarily the reasons why I like AoC ^~^ I like it because it looks absolutely gorgeous and I'm intrigued with the concepts and am super interested in how everything will play out. I'm way too far on the edge of my seat waiting for this awesome game to come out :smiley:
  • Tough one for me to answer.  There have been so many.  My favorites are usually the ones that present the most amazing and beautiful world to explore (at least at the time they came out).  Some of those include Rift, Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online, Black Desert Online (although other aspects of that game turned me off to the point of quitting).

    I'm absolutely captivated by the world Ashes of Creation promises to offer and can't wait to explore it as much as possible.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2017
    One of my favourite MMO's has to be Rift. I liked the community and the game was good and new.. refreshing, I just think it came out when World of Warcraft was still "The MMO" and Rift eventually couldn't keep up - Still going, but it is not what it used to be. The artifact collection in that game kept me busy for countless of hours, alot of hunting!

    What first hooked me on Ashes of Creation is the class combinations. I love the idea and it makes for good variety. And the game looks good, sounds like its gonna be good. Lets hope it is good!


  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2017
    I could make this a very long answer, but for the sake of... well, everyone else, I'll keep it short and sweet - because it's really not a complicated answer!

    For me, it is EverQuest 2. 
    Why?  Community.

    Of all the mmorpgs I've played (and I've given many a chance ever since Meridian 59) I played EQ2 the longest.  Friendships I've forged in that game have lasted years longer than the time I spent playing it.  It was the birth place of the gaming guild where "I hang my hat," so to speak. 

    For me, it was the right game at the right time.  
    And even when I was going through the most trying time of my life, when I was a caregiver for my mother going through cancer, a guildmate gifted me a 3 month subscription which helped me hold things together mentally and offer a little window of escape on my "off time." 

    EQ2 will always hold a special place in my heart for those reasons, even though its a game I just can't get myself ever to revisit now.  As they say, "you can't go home again."  

    When it comes down to it, I am hoping Ashes will be a game that offers such a community, one that touches us beyond the borders of the game itself.
    I don't just wish this for myself, but I wish it for other players out there - that may need such things in their life now too. 
  • MMO's are and always have been foremost an offering of experiences. Experiences in the form of challenge, storytelling, character building, and community. The recent MMO's on the market pride themselves on being like the experiences from other popular MMO's, but with a new skin and some small, but fresh mechanics. There was one though that ventured so far away from other conventions, created new ones of its own, and was even one of the first MMO's to ever go free to play with an in-game model to compensate for it.

    I speak of Anarchy Online. Far futuristic, thematic to its core, and with mechanics and design to match. While it did not contain a fully open world map (this was back in 2001), it did have vast areas to explore within each main zone, and for those who wanted to grind, but didn't want to repeat the same area, endless procedurally generated missions could be obtained and completed in a party. AO contained rough, but intact guild base building as well as PVP to tear them down. It had a fast-travel system limited by skill in hacking as well as level! It even had the first sword in a game I thought I'd play months to obtain... 

    Unfortunately the game has only recently got its latest update in 2015 and a sequel in an updated engine is not likely any time soon. I await the adventurous open world that will be Ashes of Creation. Let it be all I dream for. No pressure, Intrepid!
  • That's a tough one! I'd say FFXIV is probably one of the better designed MMOs I've played. WoW is the one I played longest, but I really can't say I enjoyed it very much after Wrath. SkyForge and BDO both had so much promise at the start, but had pretty fundamental design flaws, in my opinion; both related to their P2W cash shops.

    I played Second Life for several years also, but it's more of an open world sandbox MMO rather than a traditional MMORPG. The best thing about Second Life is also one of the worst things about it: The lack of structure and self-governance coupled with anonymity, turned it into a bit of a cesspool after a while. Also the economy was severely impacted when Linden Labs started a cash shop that wound up directly competing with some in-game retailers.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2017
    Ultima Online first and favorite but I would not play it again. My nostalgic feelings wouldn't hold up to the reality. I do still dream of mining sometimes. 

    Asheron's Call was my favorite because my real life friends played. 

    Vanguard was my favorite because of the world and the players. 

    Everquest 2 was my favorite beta. I loved the community. 

    Horizons was my favorite because Atia was a grand dragon.

    The other games... some great people, great moments but yah. Often what made the game great were the people not the promises. 
  • Played SWG but I was to young to remember it honestly, but I also played a few others like Runescape, GW2, WoW, and SWTOR.

    The one that gave me the most nostalgia was WoW, but everytime I play the game, I just feel the community is dead. No super interactive guilds or communities, just players who do their own thing.

    SWTOR is different though. It is a dying game, but I met my guild there, and I was one of the best healers for PVP on my server. Sad thing is that the game had all of its major league players leave and by the time I fully got into pvp most of the competitive scene left and the remaining people didn't take the regular pvp even seriously. It may be dying but it held my most fond memories because of my guild. 
  • Lineage 2.

    But that mostly may be nostalgia on my point. I remember doing a lot of things for the first time playing that game in my teens. Like castle sieges, large raiding and having friends.
  • My favorite single-player MMORPG is KOA: Reckoning.
    I felt most like my class - Rogue.
    And it pushed me into gameplay I usually would avoid, like pick-pocketing - but especially slitting people's throats. Normally, I'm a carebear.


    My favorite actual MMORPG is Wizard101.
    Group combat was the best.
    It was turn-based but even in a PUG, you could adapt the abilities you chose to use based on the strategies of your teammates without being told what you must do. And Trinity wasn't important. Really could be any config of classes as long as everyone knew how to maximize the strengths and cover the weaknesses of your teammates... as well as understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents.
    I'd love to experience that in real-time group combat.
  • How can you pick one when you played 30 in last 20 years. 
    UO for unforgettable memories
    EQ2 for exploration
    DAoC for great battles
    WoW for world and lore
    ESO for story
    and many more.

    In every game you can find something great, and spend great moments with some team. 
    But everything is passing, we have to look ahead, now it's time for AoC. It's bad that we have to wait so long, Waiting I am having fun with ESO Morrowind
  • The ones I've had the most fun with, have always been the ones with the most easily accessible community for me. 

    LOTRO, SWTOR, GW2... I've not really stuck with others for longer than a few months. 
  • EQ it had a great community, and you had to actually group to do content, very little was solo able.  And I've played most of the MMO's over the years.
  • I would have to say Warhammer online Even if it was only out for a short while the game was great. from the scale to the combat everything was fantastic. 
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited June 2017
    My apologies, this is a tough question since I liked almost all the games I played for different reasons.  So I will answer it in a different way, which game I like for certain aspects.

    EQ1 - (being my 2nd MMO in 99) I have to say for the community of roleplayers, the feel of world such as danger can be lurking anywhere like Hill Giants roaming in East Commons, death is meant something (corpses kept your gear, naked corpses hunting runs), exploration, grouping and dungeon runs were ton of fun.  EQ1 is an experience that could not be replaced by any other game.  Granted for any first MMO games that you played might be a similar feeling of unable to capture that game's magic.  Also enjoyed the wizard class the best in this game.  Spells in EQ1 had many functions compared to later games where you have light spells, roots, slows, gates, invis, AoEs, single target spells, stuns, etc.  I can't remember any game coming close to the variety of spells you can use as a Wizard in EQ1.  This was truly the last game I played a caster full-time.  In comparison the tanking classes were light on initial abilities which makes melee combat boring compared to all the newer games.

    DAoC - (first PvP game) I was lucky to play on a server where PvP was around the clock, sieging/defending relic keeps were frequent events, while fighting small groups or solo when the relics keeps were quiet.  Its the only game I felt there was serious effort in siege warfare where you had scout teams keeping people informed of enemy movements, small group keep retakes while defending the prize (the relic keeps), plus various open field battle strategies such as pincer movements and the like.  I played WarHammer Online and ESO as well and they never did compare to that PvP community we had in DAoC back in its start.

    SWTOR/ESO (close tie) for questing.  By far these two games quests, storylines were the best I played in MMOs.  Very immersive story telling.  

    ESO for Melee combat is one of the best with the use of blocking, bashing / interrupts, dodge rolling and light/heavy attacks without mentioning the combat hotkeys.  Although now days, perma-block for tanks can be a bit boring but necessary for tanking very hard content such as vet raids.

    SWTOR - best pvp minigames.

    Age of Conan - best raiding based on learning the mechanics on how to beat the fights (Tier 2, 3, 3.5 and 4)  The use of 3 main tanks in a raid where tanks have to switch agro, various roles players have in various fights keeps the fights interesting.

    Vanguard: Saga of Heroes - crafting (note I did not play Ultima Online so this game has the best crafting I played) and the openness of the world.  Mobs are not all clustered together, like outside of town and such.  Also, no easy travel, you needed to travel long way to complete quests at times.  Last game I seen crafting guilds actively playing.

    ESO / EQ2 - housing

    Games I did play for at least 1 year to a high of 5 years: Meriden 59, EQ1, DAoC, SWG, EQ2, Vanguard, AoC, WarHammer, SWTOR, ESO.
    WoW I played less than a year.  
    I did try Star Trek Online, LOTRO and Archeage for a bit.
  • wow grate share...  but didn't read that any played   "City of Heroes " ??? which started it all and was even before W.O.W. a little.  COH was murdered by the powers that wanted money ...  AOC i see right now wants is play...
  • I did enjoy War Hammer, the mass PvP was fun, unfortunately the Siege's were a lag fest.

    I liked the exploring and lore books you could find, and the random instance boss battles
  • I loved Aion for quite a while :3 PvP was just amazing ... When 5.0 hit everybody ran away (myself included) but I loved playing until then
    Tera is fun too - only for PvE really but I'm playing every now and then to check out the new content :3 
  • I am hoping that after 20 years this company can get it right. I would like to finally enjoy a game and not feel its like a second job.Well time will tell what will happen.
  • Elder Scrolls Online has been a roller coaster of emotion. But I do have to say I have enjoyed it the most out of every different game I have played. The PVP is decent but I think the PVE has excelled well as well as the dye system was decent. But what made it far better was the crafting and armor systems as you could truly craft something unique to yourself. I love it because of that.
  • SWTOR. Why well mostly because it was the first mmo where i felt a really good story-driven connection too and had allot of fun playing it when it was at it's prime and mostly after that i've never had any other games giving such a good experience than the one i had in Swtor. The game surerly wasn't the greatest but it wasn't a shitty game (in my opinion) and i really liked how it felt more like an mmorpg than many other's mmo i've played by far now
  • EQ was my first MMO so it will always have a special place in my heart but I think my favourite MMO was LOTRO. The lore was fantastic and everywhere you went you couldn't wait to see who from the books you were going to bump into. The PvP was so simple and superficial but so enjoyable also with the original communities and /afk chat.

    It's a shame what Turbine did to that game.  

  • I have to go with Ultima Online.  It was my first MMO, so I am probably a little biased and the sense of nostalgia is the highest with this one.  The open sandbox PvP, housing system, and general sense of community were just absolutely on point and ahead of its time.  I don't understand why more MMO's didn't at least try to capture the spirit of this game.  The crafting system was also awesome, and I had a character completely dedicated to crafting because it was actually fun and fulfilling.  Consistently made good income too because people actually relied on grandmaster crafted gear for the majority of their PvP or PvE excursions.
  • I've played multiple MMORPGs over the year, such as WoW and BDO to name a few. I don't play many MMORPGs often, but I enjoy them a lot. These two are my favorite because they are on the more popular side, and they both have a lot of content to offer. I'm looking forward to AoC because it seems very dynamic, which will make this game a hit in my book. Its nice to meet you all by the way!
  • I would say Guild Wars 2 because they run a successful non-subscription based model, yet the game for the box price has tons of content.

    The achievement system also made me explore and take in the surroundings more than any other game, MMO or not.

  • EQ1 - (being my 2nd MMO in 99) I have to say for the community of roleplayers, the feel of world such as danger can be lurking anywhere like Hill Giants roaming in East Commons, death is meant something (corpses kept your gear, naked corpses hunting runs), exploration, grouping and dungeon runs were ton of fun.  EQ1 is an experience that could not be replaced by any other game.  Granted for any first MMO games that you played might be a similar feeling of unable to capture that game's magic.  Also enjoyed the wizard class the best in this game.  Spells in EQ1 had many functions compared to later games where you have light spells, roots, slows, gates, invis, AoEs, single target spells, stuns, etc.  I can't remember any game coming close to the variety of spells you can use as a Wizard in EQ1.  This was truly the last game I played a caster full-time.  In comparison the tanking classes were light on initial abilities which makes melee combat boring compared to all the newer games.

    DAoC - (first PvP game) I was lucky to play on a server where PvP was around the clock, sieging/defending relic keeps were frequent events, while fighting small groups or solo when the relics keeps were quiet.  Its the only game I felt there was serious effort in siege warfare where you had scout teams keeping people informed of enemy movements, small group keep retakes while defending the prize (the relic keeps), plus various open field battle strategies such as pincer movements and the like.  I played WarHammer Online and ESO as well and they never did compare to that PvP community we had in DAoC back in its start.

    I have to agree it is hard when you've played so many games over the past 20 yrs.  EQ1 was my all time favorite for sure and for most all the reasons you stated.

    DAoC was the first PVP game ever for me and I found I could really get lost in it.  It gave me a reason to PvP.  We actually had groups that would stand for long periods of time to protect and defend our territories while fights were going on else where.  When a call to arms was called, players committed suicide en masse  (lost experience to do so), and go defend the castle.  That game was so community involved!

    Those were the days!  Let us hope Ashes brings us as much if not more enjoyment and  our faith back to gaming!

    CylverRayne


  • WoW during Vanilla was my favorite time. Oh how i long for those days again, where everyone was not so toxic and content was relevant. Here's to AoC for keeping that hope alive!
  • TESO just for the dirge of the games.
  • I want to say Never Winter Nights AOL because it was the first. That barely lays outside your 20 years though.

    Instead I will go with UO. There was just SO much that you could do in that game. Many things that modern MMORPGs just don't seem to think are important.

  • I have to say it is a cross between Neverwinter Nights (I played on one of the first persistent world NWN servers) and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. NWN really allowed you to grow your character and get to know the community in such a lore rich environment. Your character truly mattered to you; similar to how people who participate in DND whether pen and paper or other forums get attached to their characters, stories, and backgrounds. NWN was the first MMO that really brought that out for me in a social game. I hope that I can get the same love and attachment to my character and his "story" in Ashes that I could in NWN on that persistent world.

    Now for the other half of the fence. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was an amazing game in some parts for a short time. The lore behind the warhammer universe was amazing and I felt the game brought that out in an amazing way. So for the same reasons I loved NWN, I also enjoyed Warhammer. However, the best part of warhammer was the combat mechanics! Tanks in pvp had meaning and viability. You had the guard mechanic and it was absolutely necessary. You had lots of different healing mechanics from ranged traditional tab target heals to the melee healers and all of them made you feel like you were actively doing something not just staring at health bars and grids. Also each class had unique aspects of them that weren't just for flare or show. They had utility in sieges and raids....For example witch elves could bypass castle defenses to infiltrate from the inside like a backdoor mechanic...Similar to how Ashes appears to have rogues that can parkour up walls for the same objective in castle sieges. It gives purpose to classes in scenarios not just "I'm a damage dealer in leather armor in a 100+ skirmish" which means you die instantly to 40+ mages. So the classes that were not built for large scale battles, even in those battles, have a place that played to their strengths and then plate wearers lead the charge and played to theirs. That type of thoughtfulness on a developmental level is often lacking in large scale pvp games that involve sieges and such. Warhammer might not have done everything right in sieges, pvp, and anti-zerg mechanics but the things it attempted to do right were so ground breaking at the time that it was a breath of fresh air. The game had unrealized potential and I hope that Ashes learns from that games mistakes and expands on the thought processes those developers put into the classes and utility of every class not just if it was dps, tank, or heals etc. Also the public quest system was nice and similar on a very simple level to the node system that Ashes is implementing. My hope is that Ashes has learned from the failures of some of these would-be successful mmos in the last 10 years and can get the shortcomings of games like Warhammer, right. If Intrepid Studios can even fix half of what caused the downfall of Warhammer Online, it will be the next undisputed Dynasty in the Fantasy MMO genre.

    Intrepid Studios stay the path, stay the course. Stay true to your community and this game will be great and your franchise will flourish.
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