MMO

[alasdair2000]

Is anyone in the UK planning on buying WOW?

This would be the first MMOG for me so I'm trying to decide whether it's worthwhile.

RPGs are certainly the sort of game I play. I own Morrowind and NWN, as well some older games (Ultima Underworld, Ishar2, Dungeon Master 2, Bloodwych)

I'm also a big fan of Diablo II. I can't remember when the original Diablo came out but I'm still playing this series of games. So having the Blizzard name associated with WOW is a big plus.

The big problem as I see it is the very nature of MMOGs. I'm paying for a game which I can only play whilst there is an online community. And I have to pay for it each month.

Can anyone tell me if any of the older MMO games have been discontinued and whether any code was released to allow other people to host their own games?

Is there really enough content released by designers to justify a cost of over £250 (roughly the same figure in US$)? I know this is subjective but an example of significant patches (such as Diablo II's version 10 patch) or other content would be useful.

Has anyone had issues with this type of game, be it billing, downtime or loss of characters?

I've tried looking around the Web for information but most of the FAQs seem to overlook these issues to some extent.

TIA
Alasdair

[Google]

[Spiegel]

I played EQ for a very long time...and personally, I just don't think it's worth it. The community is a plus, and for the most part, you meet a lot of interesting people(much like a big pretty chatroom). However, there just isn't too much of an overall cohesive 'story.'

MMOGs are much more like Morrowind than they're like other RPGs. There's a big world to wander around in, and lots to do, but you just don't have much effect on the world. There's no completion...you just go on and on, trying to get the next best armor, the next best level... After a while, it just gets repetitive, and then you have nothing to do with your character(s) and the money you spent, exccept cancel them.

Hm, I hate to say all that though, because I don't want to turn you off from something you may potentially enjoy. I guess I would say, if you have the money, try it out for a few months and if you enjoy yourself, keep it. If not, then you just bought a game you don't enjoy...and hey, we've all done that before, right?
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[2young2care]

the hosting of own games realy defeats the purpose of an rpg. if you hosted your own game, it wouldn't be verry masive, orit would be veryy expensive.
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[Tron]

I've played only two MMO's in my life, the first was a UK game called EVE. It was a space MMO that basically boiled down to mining asteroids and getting greifed by other players for no reason other than they could get away with it.

I switched with a guild I had formed in EVE to Star Wars Galaxies and that game was many times better. I'd say it's some of the MOST fun I've had playing a game online. You'll notice though, that most people end up having very mixed feelings about MMO's that's because they are so static yet driven, at the same time, by the players themselves. It's not a game environment that you can control you have to adapt to the game, instead of the game adapting to you.

IMO this is the most intriguing thing about MMO's, that I can't jump in the game and have the world centered around ME. Everyone is out to get their piece of the pie'o'fun, they all want the best stuff in game, they all want to say they've been there and killed that monster. So it becomes less a feeling of I beat diablo with 3 hits as a level 99 barbarian and more about FINDING fun in the world the developers have provided you.

I like to compare it to a elementary school playground. Think of the world on the server as the playground; it's a large world with plenty of fun things to play with but without the kids the stuff just sits there. So the kids go out and play on the playground but as is human nature they all disperse into doing different things. You've got the bully that goes around teasing kids, you've got others playing tag, some hide in seek. Some prefer to play on the swings or the merry-go-round others take to digging a hole in the sand. The point is players will find fun where they want to. Some do well with this others do NOT. If your the type of player that must be constantly introduced to new content (new content meaning things that have not been physically available in game before now) then you would most likely find an MMO fun until you've reached that point of..."ok, I've done everything whens the next patch come out". The developers don't patch MMO's thinking of how fast someone can finish it, honestly there were some patches in Galaxies that players had completed all the new content the day it came out, sometimes it takes them months.

So is it worth the money? well consider that 7 days a week almost 24 hours a day you can log into a persistent world and play with hundreds/thousands of other players without worrying about servers, networking, or version incompatability. You can feel secure in the fact that the people who MADE the original game are working on additional content to update the game. As a MMO player I definitly felt like it was worth it...but think of it like this:

Would you rather pay 50 dollars for one day at a theme park and go on all the rides and shows never to come back again, or would you pay 250 dollars to have a year round pass to the theme park and slowly enjoy all things available in the park?

If you'd pay the $50, then you might wanna stick with the morrowind/NWN type games and enjoy the game as you want to at your pace. If you'd like spending time doing many many different things at a pace set by the developers then try an MMO.

k, so there's my suggestion, sorry about rambling on
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