What do you look for in an MMORPG?

Post Reply New Topic

Not sure if this was created before, but I had the idea to ask.. What is important to you in an MMORPG? What makes you say "This looks like something I want to play!"

For me the game needs to have the following:

FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT: THE GAME MUST BE OPEN WORLD. I don't mind some instances, but the game has to be mostly open world. To me making a MMORPG heavily instance based takes the MMO out of MMORPG.

An MMORPG must have decent graphics, no generic graphic style. Runescape's Flash graphics are fine, although my preference is a bit higher. I can't get into the cutesy anime style that so many games have one bit though. I dislike the typical fantasy styles too, such as gigantic swords, feminine looking male characters, AKA (Perfect world/Forsaken World ect...)

Must have an in depth crafting system which is highly useful, and profitable.

Vending is a must. I like to be able to walk around main towns and see people vending their items for selling and buying. It gives the game a more real feeling, as if I am going to the market to shop for groceries, cloth items, and everything else. I also enjoy owning my own vend, which people come to know as a popular spot to shop. It is a good way to get to know people, make money, and buy things.

A skill based PVP system, with a lot of depth. The game must have multiple PVP game types to keep my interest.

Armors must be able to show as you are wearing them, but the option to wear costume pieces over the armor is important too. Choice to look as unique as you want is very important IMO. One reason I do not play a large variety of popular games out now, is because they limit you to what you can be seen wearing.

There should be very little pay to win/succeed options in the Item Mall/Cash Shop! I hate this aspect of MMORPG's.

Party leveling required, in order to make the game a more social experience which requires team work and kindness.

An active Community

Most Players should be at least 18 years of age.

I will add more later, if I can think of anything.

I don't play MMOs, closest I got was Maplestory for like 5 minutes before I got frustrated. Too many people, it's like going to an IRC chatroom full of tons of people you don't know. I pretty much like playing RPG type games at my own pace. Even racing games, I only race to get money, I don't like the actual act of racing, I just use them to play with cars.

Well, If you posted this hoping to find an MMO like what you described I know one that fits every single descriptive you typed:

Dark Age Of Camelot

FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT: THE GAME MUST BE OPEN WORLD
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This game is completely open world + dungeons + instances.

An MMORPG must have decent graphics, no generic graphic style
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, if anything games have tried to derive from this game's graphical style. But it is still fairly unique in itself, It's not the latest and greatest realistic boob physics you're used to probably but it still looks good.

Must have an in depth crafting system which is highly useful, and profitable.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This game might aswell be centered around it's player economy and crafting, alot of gameplay elements are affected by it but not 100% reliant on it, which makes good gameplay for people like me who have no friends and solo alot.

Vending is a must
--------------------------
While you cannot really vend in town, you can vend at your house.. Yes, you heard me right, there is player/guild housing at which you can send up vendors so you can continue to quest and do what you do while people browse your goods. There is also an auction house.

A skill based PVP system, with a lot of depth.
----------------------------------------------------------
In this game, PVP is very skill based. There is also realm vs realm which is even more so.

Armors must be able to show as you are wearing them, but the option to wear costume pieces over the armor is important too.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Customizable armor to the max, as for costume there are in game morphs and what not to achieve this.


There should be very little pay to win/succeed options in the Item Mall/Cash Shop!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not a problem.. there is none

Party leveling required
--------------------------------
There are alot of things in this game that require the use of a party, killing dragons, going into dungeons/instances, RvR, regular leveling.

An active Community
------------------------------
This game has had an active community ever since before I was 13 (when I first played it) and it's still booming.. I'm 22 now.

Most Players should be at least 18 years of age.
--------------------------------------------------------------
99% of the population in this game are adults with families from all over the world. If you meet any kids in this game it's because they're the forementioned adult's kids lol.

If you do not enjoy this game from what you've listed, or just decide not to even look at it. Then there is simply no pleasing you and you! If you're wondering why I bothered making this post so long and nice looking it's because the game is worth it.

What I look for in games is simply cooperation, which is scarce. I have yet to find cooperation where my help is accepted, I don't get barked at, I don't get shunned, or ditched. Online games now a days house so many selfish farmers or cliques of people it's like being in highschool all over again. I go onto games to get away and i'm merely reminded how much I hate society. I absolutely hate competitive games like Battlefield 3.

Open persistent world
Player based economy
Crafting
PVP

I've recently got into playing MUDs (or more specifically MOOs, but they're all the same basic thing), which are text based online games. Because MUDs dont use graphics as we know them today, there is a lot more time to add content and 'fluff'. Most of them are constantly being built upon and improved too, and in many you can help shape the worlds yourself by making suggestions or even coding/building new ingame areas.

Im currently playing HellMOO, which is set in a post apocalyptic world a few hundred years in the future. Freedom City has risen from the rubble and life as we know if ha completely changed. The game is pretty adult, what with the ability to sex and rape NPCs and players, but when you think about it it really fits with the setting. My character was raped while in an orphanage. After that i made sure to always have a rape whistle on me. Some of the less disturbing elements would be the ability to buy and manage your own shop, gain employment in a corporation and be paid a salary (guilds), rent an appartment and furnish it, etc. I see now that some of these might sound a bit '2nd life' sh***y but there are actual benefits to renting a flat, the most obvious being for somewhere to store your precious loot.

Tsproggy, I have actually considered DAOC before. I don't think I would enjoy it now. It's quite a bit old, the community is not very big, and it's P2P monthly.

Samual, that sounds like an interesting game. The rape part sounds like too much though. Of all the things you mentioned you require in a game, I think Fallen Earth might be fun if you can run it. It has player controlled economy, cops, villains, bad cops, good cops, good villians, bad ones, you can arrest people and put them in prison for doing illegal things like assaulting/murders, possessing drugs/distribution, or you can be a villain and do lots of illegal things and profit off it, everywhere is open PVP, there is lots of crafting, and every part is a open persistent world. Only problem seems to be there are a lot of idiots and bad cops, who kill you just because they can. However, whenever you kill someone for no reason you are penalized in certain ways. You can be in a faction when someone kills you though, and they will go on a hunt to kill the bad guy some times, so that is helpful.

i must admit i have often found a need for sandbox gaming, lately i took a chance and purchased the secret world, it is somehwat instanced but the story telling and investigation missions more than make up for it.

it's refreshing to actually have to think and find creative solutions for one,

there is a certain morse signal where i used a third party open source software to decode the morse signal, usually its used for catching weather data and the likes from sattelites.
it took some fiddling with the signal filters and word speed, the gibberish it had catched untill then suddenly turned into a somewhat cryptic but clearly intelligable message.
not many games allows for true eureka moments.

the completely open skill system helps a lot as well, content is limited at the moment, still hundreds of hours but there are already more in the works.
the pvp is refreshing as well.

Excuse me, I meant to say "Face Of Mankind" to Samual. Fallen Earth is more of a open world/sandbox/Post apocalyptic MMORPG.

The things that a game has to have to get my attention: An open world, interesting non-human races, and a good aesthetic style of armor, environments, etc. After that I look at if the game has small-group content (like dungeons) and interesting PvE gameplay.

I played WoW briefly.

I must say. FPS are more my thing...

If I have no console games to play with the the MMORPG must be not boring and not infested with those vile hackers.

For open world, GTA is more my thing. It's so fun blowing up the cop copter with the RPG and hijacking the tank without really risking my life!

For me, what I feel an MMORPG should have is accessibility first and foremost. When I mean by accessibility, I mean like a free-to-play and free-to-download MMO that allows all kinds of gamers, be it the casual type to the hardcore ones or even the newbies, to never miss out on the action and also allows players to create their ideal look and character and playstyle too. I know, such a game is impossible to exist. But such a game does exist: Phantasy Star Online 2. That game is by far, my most favorite MMO of all time and I personally feel that game is the ideal MMORPG. But the game is current in Japanese language ONLY. But the best part is that it's getting an English-language release in early 2013. But that's just what I feel an MMO should have.

If I have to play an mmo this is what matters to me:

1. Good amount of amount of classes, several of which have to appeal to me lore and aesthetics wise.
2. Fluid, stylistic graphics. Even playing the "amazing" Guild Wars 2 beta, I still think World of Warcraft BC era looks superior, no I don't have cataracts in my eyes. I'll take cartoonish-stylistic graphics over ultra realism any day.
3. Ability to switch item appearance based purely on cosmetic appeal. This is one thing I'm very happy WoW added, what I always wanted and at least Guild Wars 2 has something very similar with the transmutation stones.
4. Mini-pets. I love little monsters, I love Pokemon, love Neopets and love being a conjuration wizard in D&D all for one reason: I get to have little monsters following me around, even if they're useless.
5.Ranged being good or not gimped. This has never been a problem in any mmo I've ever played but I hate being melee in most cases. Just feels boring to me.
6. Dependable developers that don't hate their fans. Blizzard and Anet are dependable here. Even if I'm not crazy about D3 and some of WoW's latest balance decisions they are still a company I am not horribly opposed to giving money to. Now Bioware or EA on the other hand..
7. No pay to win please, that is part of what ruined D3 for me.

I'm looking for an MMO that doesn't reward it's players for time, but only skill.

Anyone know of any? You get kind of tired of MMO's after getting facemelted by some fotm destolock cause he's got bis weapons and trinkets from PvEing with his carebear buddies.

YES, WoW, I'M TALKING TO YOU.

Uhhhh..I haven't been back to WoW in about 4-5 months but I wasn't aware that warlocks were back up to their BC level of glory to the point where they can survive pve as a glass-cannon spec in pve gear. Maybe I should re-sub and go back to my warlock! (Just kidding )

It is annoying to run into people with the legendary weapons (hi rogues) but you have to at least raid to get those, even though its probably easy now I'd hardly call having any legendary "carebear". Maybe you should just buy some blue pvp gear and get some resilience or something. Sorry, I'm mainly being fastidious, just that the words "face melting" and "warlock" confused me. Even in 3s, the warlocks one niche nowadays, I was under the impression that resto shaman with affliction warlock was the way to go. I've never been far in arenas though, usually just did them on my mage.

I'm looking for a MMO that isn't repetitive. Too bad it doesn't exist.

I was last playing during WotLK, and destolocks had a fotm for a while there, especially once the wotf nerf rolled around. Dat fear and chaos bolt man...but just to be clear, I'm talking about bis weapons and trinkets only (of which the PvP versions were sub-par compared to the best PvE stuff).

This comic from the arenajunkies forum pretty much sums it up: http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/10732 ... cs__st__20



It doesn't even have to be legendaries! Did you ever hear about doing 2s and 3s against human disc priests with TWO Solace of the Fallen trinkets? They might as well have called them "Spring of Infinite Mana". Let me just say that you could always tell when that priest was packing a Solace or two, cause they'd regenerate mana fast enough to laugh at your mana burns even AFTER you'd emptied their asses with a PIMB combo.



lol don't worry, having blue gear wasn't my problem. Having the latest tier arena gear wasn't my problem either. It was being outclassed by people with bis weapons and trinkets that you could only get via PvE that was the problem. Unfortunately, there was just nothing arena points had to offer which could come close to bringing what a Solace or a Val'anyr brought to the table (If it isn't obvious by now, I was a disc priest).

And, to get them when they were still new and cutting-edge, you had to be part of a pretty decent PvE guild.