I played WoW a bit after its initial release through the first couple xpacs. Getting the MMO itch again, but I know the WoW I grew up with doesn’t really exist anymore, so now I’m pretty out of touch.

For those of you playing / recently played an MMO, which one? How’s the community? How’s the lore? Gameplay in pve/pvp/rvr?

  • FoundTheVegan@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    This fucked up pay to win one called “Life”. Shit is hard as hell and I don’t think the devs even care about balance.

    • HelloThere@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Oh my god don’t even get me started on this game.

      Get this, you know how over time you get fatigue points and can only get rid of them by eating food items you’ve previously gathered? Well, when doing this one day last week my character nearly fucking died because of some race condition glitch where mid-swallow they tried to breathe for some unknown reason and because the devs, in their infinite fucking wisdom, decided that while there are two completely separate and incompatible systems for food and air, they must accessed via the same hole, but clearly not at the same time!

      The mind boggles, I hope someone was fired for that blunder.

    • Wolfizen@pawb.social
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      8 months ago

      It’s one of the best! And I feel it really holds up well as a modern game with classic design.

  • PonyOfWar@pawb.social
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    8 months ago

    The ones I’ve been playing on and off over the past few years are Guild Wars 2 and Lord of the Rings Online.

    GW2 is a really nice game to just pick up and play without needing huge time investments. It has a fun gameplay loop and well designed zones to explore. Haven’t gotten around to playing the new expansion yet, but I hear it’s pretty good.

    LOTRO is great for that traditional MMO experience. The community is very friendly and surprisingly active. It has a nice atmosphere. They are also frequently giving away the expansion packs, so you get a lot of content for free.

    • Zahtu@feddit.de
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      8 months ago

      I second Lotto, as it’s really great with the more community-focused aspects of MMOs. On my server, you can always find a endgame raid or dungeon group. With the recently added scaled difficulty landscape settings, you can make the landscape content harder or easier for you. Unfortunately the game is aside from the endgame content most times a single player experience. Lower level content is mostly dead, except in between major expansions, when endgame content is not that much requested as the next expac is coming in soon.

    • KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      LOTRO would absolutely be my jam but the server performance is absolutely horrendous and the UI desperately needs at least an update for its fonts. It’s a real shame.

  • Streptember@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    GW2 for the past 11 years, except for a stretch where I played ESO for a few months.

    Community’s mostly great. Cooperation between players is strongly fostered by the game’s design (no kill or resource stealing, no competing for drops, etc), so players tend to get along in almost every PvE situation.

    Lore is good, but not nearly as expanded upon as Warcraft’s.

    Gameplay is what makes it IMO. Skill effects and some gear skins can be a bit obnoxious, especially when you’re in large groups for open world and World vs World, but it’s still enjoyable. Don’t play normal PvP, so can’t comment on that.

  • ArgentRaven@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I was the same way. I quit WoW after WotLK, and started looking into it again about two years ago. Then I saw the bad reviews and how the story tanked. So I looked around at the other big ones, and FFXIV looked interesting. The story is kind of average until you get past level 50 stuff, but it gets really good. Shadowbringers is just a masterpiece. Easily as good as any other FF title you’ve played. I came for the graphics, and stayed for the lore. Compared to WoW, the graphics are great, that is.

    The PvE is good, especially when you consider that you don’t need an alt. If you make it to level 60 and find you don’t like the class you picked, you can just start with a new job on your same character and continue. So you can pay all classes without going back to the newbie tutorial zones. Plus, you will “level sync” to old content. Making the level 20 dungeon worth running as a level 89. It’s not instantly forgotten, dead content.

    PvP isn’t as good as WoW. It’s fun, and I do it daily, but there’s no rock paper scissors mechanics or supreme balance like back in the day in WoW.

    I don’t feel like I’m on a treadmill, and I’m not pressured to log in every day or fall behind. I can play casually, take a break, and not feel like I’ve lost out. Some people are hardcore raiders, but those days are behind me.

    I would never go back to WoW now. I like it better overall than I ever did running Molten Core, or Burning Crusade even. Which was pretty peak WoW, imo.

  • OscarRobin@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’d recommend watching Josh Strife Heyes videos on MMOs, but if you want an overview, the biggest ones are WoW, FFXIV, and Guild Wars 2. I’d recommend the latter.

  • potterpockets@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Check out FF14. Great free trial option. Community is overwhelmingly good (though none is perfect). PvE is pretty damn good, especially once you get to late/end game. PvP is not the best (IMO) but it is very active if you do like it. Has a couple different modes including a 5v5 push the objective mode and a 24v24v24 objective capture mode. No RvR.

    Kinda boring/typical MMO at first, but really picks up. With the free trial can play the base game and first two expansions for free, plus get the jobs (classes) from those (most of the ones in the game) up to level 70. Including crafting/gathering jobs. Can easily spend 1000+ hours just on the free trial if you choose to maximize it, but the expansions and sub are worth it IMO. And unlike WOW you van access all those classes on one character and switch with the press of a few buttons.

    And the next expansion is summer of next year, so you do have time to catch up if you decide you want to get into it.

  • skygirl@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I still play EVE online, having a lot of fun in faction warfare these days.

    A video came out on the history of the game recently, just a cool 6 hour deep dive. https://youtu.be/BCSeISYcoyI?si=1sKdXt8oPRUTbzs1

    I’ve also gotten into Guild Wars 2 recently and I’m a little addicted. The game just feels great: nice community, events are engaging, so much stuff to do but at the same time not demanding like games can be sometimes.

    • Why9@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Guild Wars 2 is great!

      I’m biased because I’ve been playing it since launch, but I’ve also dabbled in the others and simply couldn’t justify a sub fee when

      a) there are so many other games I’d like to play simultaneously and not feel guilty doing so b) there’s no gear treadmill! It really sucks in games like WoW where I want to check out the older content to get up to speed and just the zones were dead. Conversely, I’m doing map completion with my wife in GW2 and even the core maps had a bunch of people running around doing dynamic events and world bosses. The game feels so much more alive!

      • skygirl@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        All the activity in every zone I visit really does just feel so great. There’s no better sign a game is alive and healthy. It was totally that which hooked me.

        • Why9@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          All the activity in every zone I visit really does just feel so great. There’s no better sign a game is alive and healthy. It was totally that which hooked me.

          So true! It’s a game that really respects your time and there are always people around to help you if you get stuck.

          Welcome to GW2, I genuinely hope you continue to enjoy your time here!

      • ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        GW2 is my mmo home world. I started with wow but things changed when I realized Blizzard was always playing catch up with arenanet. There were a few months where blizzard made dragon riding easily accessible but once you hit max level the world content wasn’t as good and the retail community became more toxic and elitist than ever, so I switched back.

  • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I dislike MMOs that require friends, working together, joining other people. I’m not knocking it. It’s just not for me.

    So the closest things to MMOs that I like are more single player but with people. Kinda like people who go to coffee shops with a laptop.

    The list:

    Fallout 76. I jump back in every few months to check out my house and then leave. I played for about 350 hours before I felt like I did everything.

    New World. It got pretty good! Honestly I just like chopping wood. Maybe 100 hours?

    Elder Scrolls Online. The combat is so “floaty”. But if you can get passed it, the story is really really really good. Maybe 400 hours?

    • Wolfizen@pawb.social
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      8 months ago

      Old School RuneScape is a mostly solo MMO. Essentially single player with people, like you described wanting.

  • illi@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    It’s been years since I played but can’t recommend GW2 enough if you didn’t try it yet. One of the more unique thempark style MMOs with the focus on dynamic events instead of quests - the events branch out into other events, with different branches based on if you succeeded or failed with some dilogue in between (do stick around when events end!). Lore is rich and story is nice (it has ups and downs).

    The game had its rough patches and reinvented intelf several times but now it seems its in a nice place.

    Also, I figured I would plug !mmorpg@lemmy.ml - it’s not much active unfortunately, but seeing as there are somr MMO enjoyers here there could be some activity to be had if you don’t yet know it

    • Narrrz@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      how does the newest xpac stack up? I’m a longtime player but just lately my interest has waned, but it tends to come and go and it’d be nice to know whether the newest content is worth coming back for. compared to the other xpacs I feel like they did eod dirty with how little time they gave it before releasing another full expansion (hell, path of fire got essentially two full living story releases)

      • Streptember@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        What’s out so far is good.

        It’s split up so that the releases after launch continue the main story of the expansion and are included in the price, so no more buying an expansion then having to be playing at a specific time or pay for the follow-up story.

        The next part releases tomorrow, so we’ll see how that stacks up.

      • illi@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        I did not play it but I heard good things. I recommended it because I played it extensively at launch and up to the first xpac. I fell off a bit after, but still played everything up to Icebrood Saga. It’s a great MMO with tons of content just for that.

        The game had issues with how they want to do content delivery, they constantly went to reinvent the wheel for ot to bite them at the end each time. From what I heard it is quite simple now - buy xpac once a year, get xpac and living story like updatesfor the year. No logging in to unlock, no buying episodes if you miss them. You basically soft-subscribe for a years worth of content. On the other hand the xpacs will be smaller and without elite specs, but they plan to unlock different existing weapons for the classes.

        • Narrrz@kbin.social
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          8 months ago

          That’s not such a bad model. And three elite specs feels like the right number - gives you some variety in your playstyle choices without risking overlap with what already exists.

          Maybe if i ever get some free time from work ever again (lol), I’ll try to dive back in.

          • illi@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            Indeed. The stories are supposed to be self-contained too which should help people to return. Considering it myself but I used to play it so much I sadly overdosed for life it looks like

  • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
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    8 months ago

    I usually play Guild Wars 2, but at the moment I’m trying out World of Warcraft: Classic Hardcore. It’s quite fun and challenging.

    WoW: Seasons of Discovery has also peaked piqued my interest. I hope it has potential to become WoW: Classic+.

  • ktr41n@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I recently got the urge to play WoW again, so I figured I’d cash in on the ‘free play til level 20’ thing and play on a Classic server. Except those are pay only. Decided I’d try retail since it was free and quit within an hour. I’ve been really loving Turtle WoW, however.

    • CraigeryTheKid@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Oh man I just discovered and joined turtle yesterday! Haven’t had a chance to play, but did confirm it ran without any additional setup on PopOS.

      • ktr41n@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Awesome! All the advice I saw on the net was to try and run it via Steam (which ended up causing weird graphical glitches) but it ran great for me with just regular wine.

        Already found a fun guild while I was running WC…let me know if you’re looking for one!

  • Dravin@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I keep going back to Star Trek Online for some star ship pew pew. I usually get a month or two in going back over the story arcs and participating in events until the constant event schedule makes me realize I’m trapped in the grind and not playing any other games. So I drop it to break free and play the rest of my game library. The community isn’t something I really interact with as pretty much all of the game content is playable solo or antisocial (the team content is easy enough you can just random queue and don’t really have to talk or strategize with them). It is overwhelmingly PvE (though PvP is technically in the game) and it has some fun lore if you are a Star Trek fan.

    • cryostars@lemmyf.uk
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      8 months ago

      Like every day or casual? Shadowlands was pretty much the nail in the coffin for me retail-wise. Have had some fun with classic the last couple years though.

      • Azteh@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        For me it’s every day for new seasons for about 2 months and then I start going casual and just raid log.

  • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
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    8 months ago

    You can play Classic (Vanilla) WoW officially and you can play Wrath of the Lich King. Next will be Cataclysm. So the old WoW still exist in some way.