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lefthandblack

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2006
Messages
1,287
Location
Domestic Terrorist HQ
After many decades of gaming, for the first time, I have a good enough internet connection to be able to actually play an MMO.

I am a complete MMO virgin, in fact, the last mutiplayer of any kind that I have played aside from LAN was NOLF deathmatch, so that gives you an idea of what I'm talking about.

I'm looking for an MMO that meets the following criteria:

- 1st or 3rd person, no top down.

- Fantasy or Sci-Fi-Shooty

- No soft, cartoony art-direction. Fuck WOW and anything that looks like it.

- Huge world to explore, actual things to find a bonus.

- Solo viable even if there is a ceiling where you can't advance without other players, I'll probably be bored by that point anyway.

- Deep crafting system: I want to have to search the world for components to craft a +2 Sword of Death to replace my +1 Sword of Death.

Some games that I'm considering from my own preliminary research:

Final Fantasy 14 - This seems like a safe bet, but safe is probably kinda meh, that's the feeling I get anyway.

Dual Universe - This sounded interesting, a NMS clone with a persistent multi that works?

Black Desert Online - This one is really teasing the shit out of me, I'll bend her over and try her out if nobody suggests something that sounds better.
 

Bester

⚰️☠️⚱️
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Sep 28, 2014
Messages
11,007
Location
USSR
Everything you just said, EVE online meets. It's the only viable sandbox MMO. Pick a themepark MMO and you'll run out of content, and feel that the entire journey was pointless.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,320
Guild wars 1 is pretty good even if its no longer getting updates. There is a lot of depth to building characters and slotting what abilities you want to use.

If you pick the Nightfall expansion you'll get permanent "hero" companions that you can gear up and give skills too. Can basically play it as a very linear crpg with a pretty fun story. Jeff Grubb of D&D's Manual of the Planes even wrote for it.

No direct crafting in guild wars 1. You farm mobs for drops and turn them in to NPC crafters for armor pieces or weapons.

Just... skip guild wars 2 they've dropped dungeons, raids, and so much other content and just release 30ish to an hour story missions every few months or so. Guild wars 2 made me learn to stop following mmo lore seriously as sooner or later they'll just jump the shark or just drop in quality hard.

Final Fantasy 14 I hear the intro really slow but once you get into the expansions story and combat picks up. Last I heard supposedly they're cutting down how much time you have to spend on the main scenario.
 

jackofshadows

Magister
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
4,494
TESO? I wouldn't call its crafting system DEEP tho but it's still there. Solo more than viable although I heard that level scaling become even more ridiculous than it was when I've been playing (too easy).
 
Self-Ejected

Alphard

Self-Ejected
Joined
Jul 18, 2019
Messages
1,487
Location
Draghistan ( former Italy)
Guild wars 1 is pretty good even if its no longer getting updates. There is a lot of depth to building characters and slotting what abilities you want to use.

If you pick the Nightfall expansion you'll get permanent "hero" companions that you can gear up and give skills too. Can basically play it as a very linear crpg with a pretty fun story. Jeff Grubb of D&D's Manual of the Planes even wrote for it.

No direct crafting in guild wars 1. You farm mobs for drops and turn them in to NPC crafters for armor pieces or weapons.

Just... skip guild wars 2 they've dropped dungeons, raids, and so much other content and just release 30ish to an hour story missions every few months or so. Guild wars 2 made me learn to stop following mmo lore seriously as sooner or later they'll just jump the shark or just drop in quality hard.

Final Fantasy 14 I hear the intro really slow but once you get into the expansions story and combat picks up. Last I heard supposedly they're cutting down how much time you have to spend on the main scenario.
second gw1 recommendation. you can find a campaign key for 4 euros on some sites
 

Anonona

Learned
Joined
Oct 24, 2019
Messages
528
While I would recommend GW1 in grounds that is a pretty good game, I'll say it doesn't have that big of a world to explore, and most important content is instanced. Is great and I recommend it, but may not be what you are looking for. Perhaps you could check out FF XI instead of XIV. It has a bigger focus on exploring, character building and open world content. Is pretty hard at high levels and it is decent when it comes to both combat and character building (although it is quite slow compared to MMOs nowadays). It has horizontal Gear progression, crafting and 22 classes, which you can combine by choosing a main class and a sub class, allowing you to use skills of both. Is also quite unique, it was created when the genre was starting to become popular. Soloing is hard but doable with Hybrid classes like Red Mage, or pet classes like Beast Master. There is also a Trust system to allow you to party with NPCs.

Bad news is that for many the game isn't in its prime anymore. The only way to experience the "good old days" is to play in one of the private servers that exist. Alternatively, you can play a free trial of 14 days of the legit game. Is quite old, and it shows, but perhaps it may be what you are looking for OP.
 

Zed

Codex Staff
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2002
Messages
17,068
Codex USB, 2014
You'll get bored by Black Desert Online after 2 days.
I'd go for TESO if I were you.
 

lefthandblack

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2006
Messages
1,287
Location
Domestic Terrorist HQ
Everything you just said, EVE online meets. It's the only viable sandbox MMO. Pick a themepark MMO and you'll run out of content, and feel that the entire journey was pointless.

Eve Online was always the one that I thought that I would want to try, but the space game famine is over and I've been playing space games constantly for the last few years. I'll probably try it at some point though, now that it's free.


TESO? I wouldn't call its crafting system DEEP tho but it's still there. Solo more than viable although I heard that level scaling become even more ridiculous than it was when I've been playing (too easy).

You'll get bored by Black Desert Online after 2 days.
I'd go for TESO if I were you.
I read somewhere that most of the problems with it are fixed now, but then I read:
The level scaling means you can go anywhere right away without worrying about not being strong enough! :decline:

I am trying BDO, the character creator is one of the best I've see and the game is gorgeous. If it weren't for the odd asshat tring to murder invincible NPC's you wouldn't know that you were not in an SP game, which I wasn't expecting. The crafting (so far) doesn't seem as deep as I'd like and I would rate the difficulty so far as piss-easy, so that had better change or I will get bored.
 

Zed

Codex Staff
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2002
Messages
17,068
Codex USB, 2014
yes everybody except those with a specific strain of autism will get bored of BDO. most normal people will get bored of TESO as well.

too bad you refuse wow graphics because wow classic is the best fantasy mmorpg on the market
 

deama

Prophet
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
4,352
Location
UK
I had a good amount of fun with black desert online several years ago, and have even revisited again to play for about a month recently.
The same company is releasing a sequel (prequel) I believe next year, so if you can wait, might be a good idea to go for that one instead and use the time now to try out other games like EVE.

I had the most fun with mortal online, it was a 1st person ultima online clone, but much buggier. Combat was pretty decent, had one of the best crafting implementations (people actually had to experiment, and still do, devs won't say anything, and the end product is more about whether it fits the user's playstyle rather than just having the highest stats possible). Exploration was a bit of a hit and miss, it was mostly grinding to get geared up, fight in either small battles or big guild battles, and then regrind for equipment again if you died and lost yours (open pvp full loot).
Might wanna skip it though, as the same company is developing a sequel which looked decent from the trailers, donno when it's releasing though.
 

Myobi

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 26, 2016
Messages
1,356
There are only 2 MMOs I can stand atm, WoW and FF14.

If you can’t stand WoW style, give FF14 a go.

FF14 class system and visual style is pretty dope, still prefer WoW’s playstyle, I don’t really know why exactly, but from every MMORPG I’ve played, character movement and combat just feels right.

Hope ya find one that you like, good luck bro.
 

lefthandblack

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2006
Messages
1,287
Location
Domestic Terrorist HQ
I played BDO every day for about a week, leveling a Musa up to 52. The game actually started to get more interesting once I hit 50, but I put it down and haven't touched it in over a week.

They would do better by not making everything piss-easy until 50 and then going, "Ok! The tutorial is over now! Now you can play the real game!" Yeah, I think I'm done, I might pick it up again some time if I get really bored.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,874
logo.png

Pity you don't like top view... oh well.
There's a discord as well, but you did say 3rd/1st person... ah well.
 

Kalarion

Serial Ratist
Patron
Joined
Jan 30, 2015
Messages
1,008
Location
San Antonio, TX
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong BattleTech Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
You could try FF XI. IMO it was the best all-round MMORPG in the world pre Wings of the Goddess xpac (WOTG was ok but it signalled a steep drop in quality). There are lots of custom FFXI servers that stick to certain eras out there, but I would personally recommend nasomi.com. He started a thread in here years ago, you can read it if you're interested to know more.

It has its frustrations; Nasomi is a very idiosyncratic developer and his custom content is hit-or-miss. But no other server I've seen has successfully captured the feel of the Treasures of Aht Urhgan (pinnacle of FFXI imo) era like his does. It also has a stable population of over 1K and a well-established economy which Nas polices like Pinochet (that's a compliment in this case :D). Crafting in FF XI is esoteric and convoluted, with weather, time of day, day of the month, and season all affecting it. It's a lot of fun if you feel like investing the time. It's also meaningful through the entire endgame; several BIS gear choices are crafted. If you decide to give it a shot say so here and I can help you get started at least.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,874
Was Phantasy Star online that just came to usa ok or shit?
 

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