A question for MMO vets

[Ziggieke]

Really?...

 

One title:

 

EVE Online

 

ENough said.

 

True, but then the leveling there is time based, not skill or play frequency - you cannot compare that imho.

 

If you click a button 1000 times to get 10 skillups in sense heading, or you click 1 button and wait about 3 hours / 6 hours/12 hours/ ... /6 weeks / ad infinitum - you only clicked a couple of hundred times and were waiting patiently for time to pass.

[TokyoZeplin]

WoW had achievements and other miscellaneous things to do besides dungeon/raid grind. Though, the majority of it will be dungeon/raid grinding and rolling alts as it is here and most people are just complaining to complain.

 

There's actually less of a social aspect to WoW because there pretty much are no quests that require groups and the LFD is completely random with people you will never meet again, and who will most of the time never talk.

 

Since we're comparing games from their early lunch, we should stick to what's available at that time. Now granted, mmo's have evolved over time, and standards are higher now, but still, you can't compare an mmo that's been growing for 7 years + production time, to an mmo that's been out 2 months.

 

When WoW launched, it had very little end-game content, until a patch added in raids. Before that, there were a few (two, as far as I remember?) 10man dungeons, which were fairly difficult at the time, but that was it.

In coming patches over the next 6 months or so, several raids were added, the pvp honor system was added, and battlegrounds entered the world. So I'd say bioware still has a month or two to go, before people can really start complaining about lack of end-game content.

 

There IS end-game content to do in TOR, it's just not that fantastic. There's Ilum, Warzones, the heroic instances, and daily/weekly quests (something WoW didn't have for years, where people would need to grind mobs instead). That's not amazing, but end-game content IS there. Grinding for a fast speeder too, if you don't have money (though honestly, I have no idea how people can't have the money... I'm 24, and have close to 200k).

 

That said, WoW was a considerably more social mmo back in Vanila (and even BC). You had to go to all the dungeon entrances, you had to create a group for it without a LFG system, same with Battlegrounds where you had to go to the entrance of it to queue, premades for PvP was the way to go, auction house economy was the primary thing to do (strong player-driven economy at that point), all good gear came from group efforts, and since it was all only two continents, the open world was very inviting to meeting other random people out there questing, as the quest-hubs weren't in the cities.

 

Also important to note, is that leveling and everything else was a lot slower in WoW. When you reached 60 (top level, in Vanila), you most certainly did not have fantastic gear. Maybe a few half-decent pieces, but there was work to be done. You also didn't have NEARLY enough money to buy the epic fast mount, people would spend many months grinding money for that. Your crafting and gathering skills were most likely not fully leveled up, and you most certainly did not have all the recipes and such. And then there were other crafts, like cooking, fishing, first aid, and so forth. Not to mention, that when WoW came out, it took a lot longer before Joe-Average had reached top level.

In that aspect, while WoW didn't have a lot of "end-game" content, it had a lot of stuff to work towards once you did hit top level.

 

 

In a nutshell, WoW treated you like a slave in Egypt. I don't miss it at all.

Yeah, 40 man Molten Core 6+ hours raids with 10 fps for one tier 1 item. How awesome was that?

It was damned awesome

Edited February 14, 2012 by TokyoZeplin

[chaosvernon]

Really?...

 

One title:

 

EVE Online

 

ENough said.

 

EVE Online is 8 years old. It Predates wow its still from a time before things got... casual.

[Amonette]

What you do at level cap depends on what you like doing. Bear in mind that the game is just coming up to month three, so there is a lot more content to come.

 

If you enjoy group work get into raiding. You need to start off by doing Ilum and Belsavis dailies to get commendations for gear that should get you ready for normal mode operations. You can also do hard mode flashpoints, but bear in mind that some of these. The tactics you learn in them are a good training ground for hardmode ops as a lot of the mechanics are introduced here. Once you've geared up a bit more through hardmode flashpoints and dailies it's time for hardmode ops.

 

If you want to do operations I recommend getting into a guild, you'll have a better time of it and a more regular schedule.

 

Crafting-wise there is plenty to do, the market is still young and there is definitely money to be made in various niche markets. I know someone making a killing on mid level vibroblades, ship parts sell ok on our server and decent mods can be valuable.

 

Being on a PVE server, I'm not too familiar with the PvP possibilities but if that's your thing, again, find a good guild. Vaguely organised PvP can be lots of fun.

 

If you're a bit of a box ticker try finding all the datacrons and crystals, plus there are codex items aplenty to hunt down.

 

Last but not lease, I love the space missions and know I will still be doing those most days when I hit level cap. I've been going slowly because I like the storyline so much

 

Oh and btw, little forum hint - if someone mentions WoW in their post you can just go ahead and ignore the whole thing

[Lucpol]

True, but then the leveling there is time based, not skill or play frequency - you cannot compare that imho.

 

 

COmpletely agree Was just trying to point out to the OP that the statement was incorrect, as both titles come under the same genre banner. But as I said i take my hat off to you sir-as I also believe that they should not be.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Lucpol

[Amonette]

Oh and as for the 'mmos are dead' thing - I think that's a misconception based on the fact that a lot of people playing them aren't particularly social and have chosen a genre that is wrong for them. A lot of people like the idea of having to cooperate with a team to kill a boss, but some prefer to play alone. That's fine, but it doesn't mean MMOs are dying. Your preference is not true for everything only for you. Plus with big names like Secret World and TERA coming out you can hardly say the mmo is in decline. It all depends on whether you want your play-time to be immersive and uninterrupted so you can get lost in a sandbox or whether you like to come on, say hi to your guildies, crack some jokes, do some dailies together, have a few duels, swap some stuff you don't need for stuff you do, brag about your latest piece of gear and play hide-and-seek on teh immperial fleet.

[Makar]

Oh and as for the 'mmos are dead' thing - I think that's a misconception based on the fact that a lot of people playing them aren't particularly social and have chosen a genre that is wrong for them. A lot of people like the idea of having to cooperate with a team to kill a boss, but some prefer to play alone. That's fine, but it doesn't mean MMOs are dying. Your preference is not true for everything only for you. Plus with big names like Secret World and TERA coming out you can hardly say the mmo is in decline. It all depends on whether you want your play-time to be immersive and uninterrupted so you can get lost in a sandbox or whether you like to come on, say hi to your guildies, crack some jokes, do some dailies together, have a few duels, swap some stuff you don't need for stuff you do, brag about your latest piece of gear and play hide-and-seek on teh immperial fleet.

 

I think it's more because WoW brought a lot of people into what used to be a niche genre... MMOs will live on just as they had, but I doubt there will be a game again like WoW that united so many people with so many different playstyles, and so it seems like it's dying when it's more returning to the status quo. Seriously, when POGO gaming moms stood side-by-side with basement dwelling nerds, I wept a lil.

[MegaBubble]

this is something I don't understand.

 

If you don't enjoy a game, why play it? even pay a monthly fee?

For me, its because of the community aspect.

 

Whereas I would find it unacceptable to grind endlessly for incremenatal increases in power in a single player game, the fact that I'm grinding through said content with other players, and often times with friends/guildmates makes it a lot more tolerable. That said, if you're essentially treating TOR as a single player game with multiplayer and not taking advantage of guilds and the things that having a good guild offers, then you're going to become bored at game's end that much quicker.

 

Gearing up and getting better/stronger is always better when you've got someone to show said gear off to, or other players to compete with/fight alongside.

[XiliX]

Personally, I always found level cap to be the end of the game for me. probably why I never understaood why some people feel a need to rush to get there as fast as possible.

Doing dailies & grinding for cash (which you probably dont need anymore) gets boring fast.

I'll do a short raid or two, but if I have to grind them out repeatedly for some item, the appeal for said item will drop far more quickly than it does.

[Amonette]

I think it's more because WoW brought a lot of people into what used to be a niche genre... MMOs will live on just as they had, but I doubt there will be a game again like WoW that united so many people with so many different playstyles, and so it seems like it's dying when it's more returning to the status quo. Seriously, when POGO gaming moms stood side-by-side with basement dwelling nerds, I wept a lil.

 

 

Aha yes - AT FIRST. That's a valid point if you were a vanilla player. However give it a few years and look what's happened - WoW is not the same as it was at launch by a very long way. It's growing popularity pulled in a lot of the players that I was talking about - ones that have disagreeable personalities and no social skills who were attracted to WoW because it was so huge and successful and by that point there was so much to do it it. This led to a sharp decline in community spirit. Now those people have jumped on the MMO bandwagon whether or not it's right for them. Most of the people I know who left did so because they said the atmosphere in WoW got worse and worse. It's a shame - the WoW community was inspiring in it's hey-day, but that is very much over now. It would be nice if MMOs became less mainstream - then those of us who do play for the community would be free to enjoy it without all the haters. Y'know, like they did before WoW.

[Karraway]

Personally, I always found level cap to be the end of the game for me. probably why I never understaood why some people feel a need to rush to get there as fast as possible.

Doing dailies & grinding for cash (which you probably dont need anymore) gets boring fast.

I'll do a short raid or two, but if I have to grind them out repeatedly for some item, the appeal for said item will drop far more quickly than it does.

 

Agree,it's probably the biggest problem with the lvling idea,there has to be an end game. The secret world is doing a very different approach of no lvls just skill trees that can be expanded.we will see how it turns out but if done well this approach could help to eliminate such a need for higher and higher lvl content and also being able to revisit each zone at any point.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Karraway

[ckoneful]

Every level cap, 60, 70, 80, & 85. After the initial level grind you did Heroics to get gear for raids, then wiped week after week on bosses advanced 1 maybe 2 bosses a week until you hit the latest tier of content. If you were that lucky that is, most cases the newest raid came out before you were finished with the previous one (At least in the early game/expansions) when which after a while got you further and further behind.

 

Aside from raiding you had Arena or PvP some notable AV matches lasted 40+ hours.

 

 

Every expansion you would rinse and repeat. Grind out raiding until you completed it or burnt out, same with pvp.

 

There hasn't been a raid grind like that since vanilla and MAYBE TBC.

Edited February 14, 2012 by ckoneful

[thomaspraill]

Vanilla was the first and only flavor of WoW that had any meaningful end game. As soon as you hit 60 you were basically head to toe in 50s green gear and this was the progression:

1) Run 60s 5 man dungeons for 60s blues

2) Once sufficiently geared run 10 man dungeons for fire resist gear and rare crafting mats

3) Craft fire resist, buy fire resist, farm for fire resit. GET FIRE RESIST.

4) With enough fire resist you can do molten core (raid).

5) With molten core gear you could do BWL/Ony (raid)

 

The above progression was easily a year of casual play time and there was also many things to do on the side. PvP was more of a side thing in those days.. you essentially PvE'd to get better gear for PvP. There was also side crafting like fishing, epic class quests, etc.

 

Then came TBC. TBC decided people were too retarded to figure out the progression of endgame for themselves so they made almost everything a mindless commendation grind. WOTLK made it worse (even more dumbed down end game mechanics)... and Cata even worse.

 

That brings us up to today where the true MMO is almost dead. Games like SWTOR continually insist of direct plagerism of Cataclysm style mechanics and thus we get these shallow, low quality, throw away games.

 

I personally blame the dwindling talent in game designers. Everyone and their little brother from my generation (and increasingly the ones after mine) want to be "video game developers" because it "looks fun". This has created a chinese-style work force where people are valued more for their willingness to work long hours for cheap than for their actual talent.

Edited February 14, 2012 by thomaspraill

[Kaelshi]

WoW had achievements and other miscellaneous things to do besides dungeon/raid grind. Though, the majority of it will be dungeon/raid grinding and rolling alts as it is here and most people are just complaining to complain.

 

There's actually less of a social aspect to WoW because there pretty much are no quests that require groups and the LFD is completely random with people you will never meet again, and who will most of the time never talk.

 

 

don't let this guy fool you - the LFD had nothing to do with the WoW community.

 

If you want to see an example of the WoW community look up Barrens C hat in WoWWikki - that was years before LFD was implemented and it representative of the type of "community" that was being "built"

[Kaelshi]

Oh and as for the 'mmos are dead' thing - I think that's a misconception based on the fact that a lot of people playing them aren't particularly social and have chosen a genre that is wrong for them. A lot of people like the idea of having to cooperate with a team to kill a boss, but some prefer to play alone. That's fine, but it doesn't mean MMOs are dying. Your preference is not true for everything only for you. Plus with big names like Secret World and TERA coming out you can hardly say the mmo is in decline. It all depends on whether you want your play-time to be immersive and uninterrupted so you can get lost in a sandbox or whether you like to come on, say hi to your guildies, crack some jokes, do some dailies together, have a few duels, swap some stuff you don't need for stuff you do, brag about your latest piece of gear and play hide-and-seek on teh immperial fleet.

 

or maybe it means the so-called "social" aspect is not was vital as some people like to think.

 

It is not Massively Multiplayer Social Online Roleplaying Game.

 

Socailizing is just another aspect of MMO's - not some required thing that means you arent playing the game right if you don't do it the way you think it should be done.

[Ironspeed]

First of all, it took longer for me to level my first character in World of Warcraft..

 

Anyway, I did disocvery things, meaning I actually went around the whole map, the fact that it's open was so awesome, it was one gigantic world, I did my proffesions, blacksmiting, mining, cooking, fishing and first aid, I was a human warrior so I started doing the reputation grind for darnassus, to get the sweeeet tiger mount!

 

Apart from those things, I did some orgrimmar raids, thunderbluff raids and pvp in southshore, sometimes for hours and hours while sitting on irc/ventrilo talking to both factions having a blast.

 

Gearing up was also one thing, farming mats to craft a blue tanking gear, doing the instances at the time (still in vanilla now), we where a guild of friends so grouping was fairly easy.

Then ofc we did raid, 40 man raids was awesome back then, guildmanagment not so much

 

In the later expantions it was more of the same I suppose, there where more quest hubs around in general, I did my netherwing rep, the rep to get the skyguards.

The dailys that moved with the latest instances (sunwell, argent tournament, firelands) I did the reputation dailys with the highland dwars and the orcs (I played both factions).

 

Well you get the picture I suppose

[Ossos]

Back in vanilla WoW, when the guild level capped, the game really just began.

 

In SWTOR, when everyone in the guild level caps...the game is just about over.

[ckoneful]

don't let this guy fool you - the LFD had nothing to do with the WoW community.

 

If you want to see an example of the WoW community look up Barrens C hat in WoWWikki - that was years before LFD was implemented and it representative of the type of "community" that was being "built"

 

Didn't say LFD was the only cause of it. The problem was making everything cross server including BGs, removing the need for grouping while leveling up completely, the addition of Name/Race/Server transfers, and dumbing down the game in general to allow more people access to the game and thus adding a horrid community to the already falling apart one.

 

The Community was gone/going well before 3.3(LFD patch).

[Graburr]

If you want to see an example of the WoW community look up Barrens C hat in WoWWikki - that was years before LFD was implemented and it representative of the type of "community" that was being "built"

 

so you measure the type of a server's community based on the chat of a lowlvl-zone?

Edited February 14, 2012 by Graburr

[StarXchaser]

I never played WOW so I'm curious to know what there was to do when your character reached level cap.

 

Just browsing the forums and stuff, I get the sense that when you reached your max level is when the game really started. For the most part I stick to single players games so when the story is over, the game is finished for me unless I really enjoyed it and pay for some DLC down the road.

 

I am really enjoying the game and have played four classes to around 40. I loved IA so much I decided to hold off on my lvl 36 OP and see how the sniper plays. So back to my question. WOW being Theme Park like SWTOR, (again thats just what I am picking up) What was there to do besides wait for the next expansion? Besides rerolling alts and hacking out dungeons you've done multiple times before?

 

Just on a side note I read you could fish in WOW. This makes me wonder if you could just wander off and spend time just fishing, looking for secret or hidden areas, chatting with different people and that kind of social stuff. In SWTOR its seems since this is so about your personal story, you miss out on a lot of social opportunitys besides heroic and flashpoints.

 

Thanks

 

Well, as others have posted before me, it depends on what version of WoW you were playing. For example, Vanilla WoW had fishing, which was basically a major timesink. It really didn't do all that much, and more or less existed to get some minor buffs and to summon 1 singular boss in the first raid of WoW. Vanilla was mostly about endgame dungeon diving, and progressing into raids. You did have PvP, but that was also a timesink, and not really a major factor of the game.

 

Burning Crusade (TBC) changed things up by adding more collectors items in the form of mounts, pets, clothing (I.e. social gear in SWTOR), tabards, and holiday items.

 

Wrath of the Lich King took what TBC did to a new level by adding a dozens of new collectors items, a way to store those said items, and a lot of unique things like toy trains and mini-tanks that you could battle with. Wrath also introduced vehicles, which are mounts that are designed to carry yourself, and a friendly or two. In addition, Wrath added Hierloom gear to collect, which can be thought of as a precursor to custom gear. And finally, on top of all that, fishing was revamped, and an Achievement system was added.

 

And finally, Cataclysm introduced transmorgifacation, which is a fancy way of turning old gear you've saved up into the equivalent of custom gear.

Oh, oops, almost forgot Archeology, but explaining that would required a massive post.

[kufa]

Imagine a game where you and ~30 friends share a common goal, to overcome the PVE raid challenges. You raid a couple of nights a week and get a strong feeling of team play and as the weeks pass by you get closer and closer to killing the hardest boss. You will experience the team getting stronger and evolving. Then one night you sit there. You have been playing for months (weeks if you are hardcore) just for this very moment. You face the last boss in a dungeon on the hardest difficulty with hours of practice behind you and you feel that this could finally be "it", the try he dies. You start of as you have practiced and you see his HP slowly dropping, 45%, 35%, 25%, everything is going great, 15%, 10%, you start to get nervous and feel a chill through your spine and you realize you have enough people alive to kill the boss if no one fails these last minutes, 5%, could this really be "it"!?, 3%, 2%, 1%, you realize he is going to die, 0%. He is dead. Months (or weeks) of playing and practicing finally payed off. You scream in happiness together with your team. Together you have overcome a great challenge and the team has never been stronger. If you are lucky you get a cool piece of equipment that not many other players on the server have got and you can truly feel proud over this achievement. Now you wait until the next content patch releases so that you can experience this feeling again.

 

This is was makes WoW great from a PVE point of view. SWTOR totally lacks this in its current state since it is very easy and casual oriented.

Edited February 14, 2012 by kufa

[seallone]

Since we're comparing games from their early lunch, we should stick to what's available at that time. Now granted, mmo's have evolved over time, and standards are higher now, but still, you can't compare an mmo that's been growing for 7 years + production time, to an mmo that's been out 2 months.

 

When WoW launched, it had very little end-game content, until a patch added in raids. Before that, there were a few (two, as far as I remember?) 10man dungeons, which were fairly difficult at the time, but that was it.

In coming patches over the next 6 months or so, several raids were added, the pvp honor system was added, and battlegrounds entered the world. So I'd say bioware still has a month or two to go, before people can really start complaining about lack of end-game content.

 

There IS end-game content to do in TOR, it's just not that fantastic. There's Ilum, Warzones, the heroic instances, and daily/weekly quests (something WoW didn't have for years, where people would need to grind mobs instead). That's not amazing, but end-game content IS there. Grinding for a fast speeder too, if you don't have money (though honestly, I have no idea how people can't have the money... I'm 24, and have close to 200k).

 

That said, WoW was a considerably more social mmo back in Vanila (and even BC). You had to go to all the dungeon entrances, you had to create a group for it without a LFG system, same with Battlegrounds where you had to go to the entrance of it to queue, premades for PvP was the way to go, auction house economy was the primary thing to do (strong player-driven economy at that point), all good gear came from group efforts, and since it was all only two continents, the open world was very inviting to meeting other random people out there questing, as the quest-hubs weren't in the cities.

 

Also important to note, is that leveling and everything else was a lot slower in WoW. When you reached 60 (top level, in Vanila), you most certainly did not have fantastic gear. Maybe a few half-decent pieces, but there was work to be done. You also didn't have NEARLY enough money to buy the epic fast mount, people would spend many months grinding money for that. Your crafting and gathering skills were most likely not fully leveled up, and you most certainly did not have all the recipes and such. And then there were other crafts, like cooking, fishing, first aid, and so forth. Not to mention, that when WoW came out, it took a lot longer before Joe-Average had reached top level.

In that aspect, while WoW didn't have a lot of "end-game" content, it had a lot of stuff to work towards once you did hit top level.

 

 

 

It was damned awesome

 

 

Why Lie,,,,,,,,,, There's Ilum, Warzones, the heroic instances, and daily/weekly quests (something WoW didn't have for years.??????????? AV, 40 vs 40

[PyxisNautica]

I never played WOW so I'm curious to know what there was to do when your character reached level cap.

 

Just browsing the forums and stuff, I get the sense that when you reached your max level is when the game really started. For the most part I stick to single players games so when the story is over, the game is finished for me unless I really enjoyed it and pay for some DLC down the road.

 

I am really enjoying the game and have played four classes to around 40. I loved IA so much I decided to hold off on my lvl 36 OP and see how the sniper plays. So back to my question. WOW being Theme Park like SWTOR, (again thats just what I am picking up) What was there to do besides wait for the next expansion? Besides rerolling alts and hacking out dungeons you've done multiple times before?

 

Just on a side note I read you could fish in WOW. This makes me wonder if you could just wander off and spend time just fishing, looking for secret or hidden areas, chatting with different people and that kind of social stuff. In SWTOR its seems since this is so about your personal story, you miss out on a lot of social opportunitys besides heroic and flashpoints.

 

Thanks

 

WoW is two games in one really. You've got the leveling/dungeon grind but then you've got the level cap game, where you'll spend the majority of your time. If you're in a good guild on a good realm, you will never lack for things to do. Personal/Guild Achievements, PVP/Arenas, Raiding, crafting, AH gambling...pretty much a lot of stuff. Some people fall into the dungeon/raid grind but if you're interests are wider than that, you'll find plenty to keep you busy.

 

As for the fishing that you're interested in, yes it's an excellent pasttime for a player who likes unstructured wandering and exploring (not to mention the achievements that go along with it).

 

WoW is NOT a utopia though. Depending on what your interests are and how fast you burn through them, you could end up bored while waiting for a new content patch or expansion. If you're not careful, you could end up on a terrible realm and stuck in a guild that doesn't really match your goals or personality. But like ANY multiplayer game...YOU are the master of your destiny...not the game company. It's what YOU make of it.

[Azzras]

WoW had (as of last year, can't speak to recently) all kinds of different ways to entertain yourself at end game.

 

Achievements

Collectors (i.e. mounts)

Faction rep

Fishing

Auction House

Crafting (manual)

Exploration

City raids (kill opposite faction boss in a city) <--- loads of fun

Arena

*PvP in general

*PvE Raids and Heroics

*Dailies

 

Bottom three were the "grindiest" of them all, and guess which one's SW has?

 

Did you really list fishing as 'fun'?

[PyxisNautica]

Did you really list fishing as 'fun'?

 

I would count fishing as fun. It CAN be tedious but I spent many a happy hour fishing for the Sewer Rat, mount and achievements