How man das passende MMO findet (englisch)

[Gast Elikal]

Kommentar: Dies ist ein Artikel aus meinem Blogg. Leider in englisch, aber da ich ne faule Sau bin, bleibts leider so. Sorry für das seltsame format. :/

Ever so often I see people on forums asking, what Online Game should I play? Well, in honest, it

is a personal question none really can answer. But sometimes we need a few questions, to sharpen

our mental sword.

So here comes, Elikal's Ultimate-Subjective Guide to find the right MMO for everyone!

(In order of importance)

1. GRAPHICS:

It's like dating. If officially asked, everyone says he chooses a partner by his/her character.

But of course, we don't. I mean, character, in our case, game system is of course important.

But what counts is, if we find the world visually attractive. As with dating, so with gaming.

A really, really good advise is, don't look at screenshots. They tell you absolutely nothing. Really.

I recall looking at screenshots I found awful, like WOW, they look so comic-like and in real it looks

much more awesome. Or Dark and Light; the screenshots looks alright or some even good, but

nothing can describe the visual horror of the actual game. So try to get into a beta or a trial or

visit a friend who plays it. This is serious advise. Those graphics are what you will stare at for a

VERY long time and MANY man-hours! If you hate the character models and the landscape, your

date can be as kind and smart as whatever, but you will never marry.

2. THE COMMUNITY

Yes, there is another one more important that game system and that is community. I played a lot

of mediocre games because they had a great community. I guess the best example by far is City of

Heroes. It has some great aspects, but a lot of tiresome, lacking repeatable stuff, but it's community

is the best and most mature I have ever seen. On the downside, a really bad community can totally

ruin even the best game. Alas, communities can hardly be analyzed or predicted, and they change on

each server and over time. There are a few basic rules, though

- The easier the game and the faster levelling is, the younger and more immature is the audience

- games with a given lore can attract many "Lore Mongers" who harass people with lore correctness

- Read the forums, but take a grain of salt; a forum CAN be an indicator; remember, that forums attract

whiners and aggressive people and most decent people avoid forum wars, but it should give a sense

if a forum is overly dark

- more aggressive PVP-heavy games often attract younger audiences, while non-PVP games are usually

played by more calm and older people; the more competition a game has, the more likely is immature

behaviour (alas)

3. GAME SYSTEM

This means, what the game offers inside. There are all things you may have as a personal preference, sure, but since we play those games expectantly many hours and months, you can claim a few things, so I divide this into a few most important sub-sections.

a) IMMERSITY

Since we play MMOs LONG and OFTEN, the question is: what can I do in this game, BESIDES questing? If your time is VERY limited you may want questing only, but most players desire living worlds in which they feel like in a second home. That’s why I never ever would play DDO. I have never played any game as non-immersive as DDO. You may want places to Role-play or socialize, living cities, housing, places to explore, other professions that combat, other ways to gather experience than questing and hunting. You can only hack on that Orc-Spider-Wolf-Skeleton mobs so often. It gets old very fast if you can't do anything else in between.

REPLAYABILITY

Few people really ever only create one single character. Most tend to try out other characters, or after reaching high end game want to start fresh. So, if you play a new character, will you see new things, or all the same quests again? Games like EQ2 or SWG have little replay ability, because if you start anew, you get all the same quests again. In that way WOW with Horde and Alliance realms and multiple starter areas is far better. Believe me, no matter what you think now, you WILL make alternative toons!

c) HIGH - LEVEL (HIGH-END) GAMING

This means, what will you do in a game if you reach the upper third of the level ranks? In so many good games the high end game is rather bad and mindless IMO. In EQ2 above level 40 or so quests begin to get VERY complex. So you may like making monthly schedules to get your quests done, but if you are a more spontaneous person (like me) you won't like high level gaming in EQ2. Or take WOW: currently you have to do raids in the high levels to get any good equipment and to have any real challenges, so if you don't like to run like chicken with 39 others, you wont like WOW high end game. High-end game is a rather tricky thing always, just keep a focus on what a game offers and what you like.

d) INDIVIDUALITY

This is also something not everyone values, just be sure to know how much you do. If you love Planetside, where everyone looks like the army of clones, well, then this topic is of no matter for you. I recall how frustrated I was in Lineage II and the RF Online beta with its 4 faces and 4 haircuts. And it doesn't get better in higher levels. Some people like me value to be recognized and some games offer this better than others. If you value real individuality games like SWG and CoH have set real good standards. Gear (Clothing can compensate this, but it may be so expensive or uber gear that any normal player will never lay his hands on it, like the goddamn EQ2 profession hats! They are so uber rare and far away, its a laugh.)

e) CASUAL VS HARDCORE

Know how much daily or weekly man(woman)-hours you are going to invest into a game. The less you have time the faster a game must lead you to the fun. A reason why WOW has so many subscribers is, it leads you to the fun MUCH faster than any other game. Quests are simple and easy to find, zones are logically sorted by difficulty, there are many helpers to find a group, there is a very balanced difficulty and so on. Small things like that allow you to log into WOW and start something in a few minutes. If you want it complicated, EQ2 is the other example, because of the complex nature of the quest system. You MUST prepare and organize in order to accomplish anything beyond the basic levels.

f) SOLO - GROUP - RAID BALANCE

A tricky issue. Each game has a certain balance of quests you can do solo, in a group or a raid (20-40 people), but very few gaming companies give an honest statement on this and it takes some time to find this out on yourself. A 14 day trial is definitely too short to see this. Ask people who play a game about it, read reader-reviews. Some desire solo or raiding, I know, but IMVHO a MMO is designed around the old fashioned idea of the good old D&D tabletop days of fetching 4 friends and doing that adventure. I think both solo and raid should be the exceptions in MMOs. I soloed a lot once, but when EQ2 made so many mobs soloable, it became nearly impossible to find a group unless you were in a big guild. Keep this in mind, if too many mobs are too easy (=soloable) people unlike group, and a good group is where the fun starts.

I am sure everyone has some other things in mind, but I guess this covers the most important and lasting topics. All statements are, naturally, highly personal and subjective.

[Gast Elikal]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGH!!!!

"How man das passende MMO findet"? Dat is ja wohl der beschissenste Titel aller Zeiten. Kann mal ein Mod das bitte ändern. Ich muss wohl unter Dope gestanden haben. Wie peinlich. +__+()

[Gast Chronocide]

Für Leute die gerade erst den Einstieg in die Welt der MMO's finden ist das sicher ein hilfreicher Guide. Und diese Sorte von Menschen findet man überall, wie unseren lieben GC-Druckies erfahren haben

Danke meinerseits, auch wenn ich die meisten MMO's mitlerweile kenne.