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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
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)?
Drop me a line!
~Rogue Raven
Thespian Extraordinaire
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)?
Drop me a line!
~Rogue Raven
Thespian Extraordinaire
0
Comments
I'm absolutely captivated by the world Ashes of Creation promises to offer and can't wait to explore it as much as possible.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
LOTRO, SWTOR, GW2... I've not really stuck with others for longer than a few months.
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.
I liked the exploring and lore books you could find, and the random instance boss battles
Tera is fun too - only for PvE really but I'm playing every now and then to check out the new content
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.
The achievement system also made me explore and take in the surroundings more than any other game, MMO or not.
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
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.
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.