MMORPGs

All general, non-comics discussion goes here!

Moderators: Don Alexander, midgetshrimp

User avatar
Arantor
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:25 am
Contact:

Re: MMORPGs

Post by Arantor »

Not strictly RPG, but I play Star Pirates, with occasional forays into Kingdom of Loathing (not that that is MMO)

Guess I just never saw the point of MMORPGs much.
Image

User avatar
Bear
BANNED
Posts: 7649
Joined: Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:20 pm
Location: England

Re: MMORPGs

Post by Bear »

Down the years, MMORPG wise, I've played quite a few... just wish I could find one that I could play for free, that held my interest beyond a few weeks and didn't take stupid amounts of grinding to get anywhere.

User avatar
Arantor
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:25 am
Contact:

Re: MMORPGs

Post by Arantor »

Bear wrote:Down the years, MMORPG wise, I've played quite a few... just wish I could find one that I could play for free, that held my interest beyond a few weeks and didn't take stupid amounts of grinding to get anywhere.
Well, Star Pirates isn't too bad since although you do get hit in PvP you don't have to lose anything, and you can do a lot without grinding too much, but it is pretty much just PvP.

Perhaps we should make our own. I have been mulling it over for a while, actually - a little like Star Pirates, but on the seas.
Image

User avatar
Retiarius
Posts: 1020
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 10:09 pm
Location: Muskegon, Michigan, USA
Contact:

Invitation to Fellow MA3/MMORPG fans

Post by Retiarius »

Thread rez!

It occurs to me that an MMORPG could be a way for some of us to interact outside these forums, maybe even have some fun together. Naturally, I’d like to volunteer the one I play, since I only have time and money to play one: Star Wars Galaxies, aka SWG.

I will admit that a few years back the game underwent changes in the form of the NGE (New Game Enhancements) that raised such a stink that some player cities and guilds cancelled their subscriptions en masse; even mainstream media outlets such as Time magazine had articles on the screwup. I think SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) learned a lot from that huge mistake—the changes since then have almost all been positive and the NGE now pretty much only exists as a bad memory. No, the game isn’t perfect—no game is. “Perfect” is a human concept that does not exist in reality; if you wanted perfect you got born to the wrong universe.

Yes, it’s a subscription-based game; $15 per month. I’ve tried some of the free MMORPGs and largely found that I got what I paid for. I totally understand if some of you can’t afford the time or money to play. Sometimes I have trouble finding both. :ymsigh:

So, aside from it being the game I’m playing, why would a fellow forumite want to consider joining?
  1. It’s Star Wars. Almost everyone has been exposed to the setting so a lot of the game will be familiar. How many people who haven’t actually played World of Warcraft know anything about the setting?
  2. It’s a mature game. Yes, the latest and greatest is attractive and glitzy, but SWG has been around for over five years. That means it has a lot of content already developed for it. I know that Bioware is working on the Knights of the Old Republic MMORPG, but they have no institutional experience running a MMORPG, so the game is a crap shoot. It’s also vaporware—and because it IS set in the Old Republic era, it might have Jar Jar Binks. No, thanks. L-)
  3. PvP (player-vs.-player) combat is tightly controlled. It’s hard for PKers (Player Killers) to go around and gank new players. PvP is only possible under certain circumstances, and you’re always warned if you enter a PvP zone or status. You pretty much have to want to PvP to get your avatar killed by another player’s.
  4. It’s Star Wars, but there’s more to do than just kill stuff. In fact, two of the nine base professions are non-combat professions: Trader and Entertainer. SWG has one of the most intricate item crafting systems in any game, and much of the important stuff is made and sold by other players running Traders: starships and starship parts, weapons, armor, clothing, food and drink, houses and civic structures for player cities, furniture and decorative items, vehicles, droids, skill enhancing attachments and even creatures. (The chuba in my signature graphic was made by another player in my guild at my request. His name is Überchüba. :D) Entertainers provide useful and important inspiration buffs and add to the social aspect of the game.
  5. It has a decent user interface. Aside from being very customizable, which you would have a right to expect in any game, SWG has a pretty good macro language (not anything like the language in Second Life, but you spend most of that game programming rather than playing, or so it seems to me), in-game e-mail, multi-channel text and voice chat (no messing with Ventrilo or Teamspeak servers), and a built-in web browser—you can visit the MA3 forums without Alt-Tabbing to Windows. :P
  6. It’s not a demanding game. Because it’s older, SWG can run fine on older machines. Windows XP and a half a gigabyte of RAM will do for a start, although it runs better with at least one gigabyte. As for any computer game, make sure your operating system and video drivers are up to date.
  7. Spammers selling stuff are fairly rare. These bastitches used to be a real problem until SOE introduced the Warden program to SWG a bit over a year ago. Now they are all but extinct. When some joker’s avatar starts advertising selling credits or powerleveling for real money and a Warden (basically a trusted player with access to a special command) sees him, the Warden can silence the offending avatar for 24 hours, cutting off his access to ALL in-game chat and e-mail and automatically reporting the avatar to Customer Service Representatives who then terminate the account with extreme prejudice. It’s actually pretty funny. :ymdevil: Life is hard and often short for the “gold seller” in SWG.
If you do decide to try it, here’s what you do:
  • Go to http://tryswg.com. This URL now points to the main SWG site but it’s easier to remember. Download and install either the 14-day trial—or buy The Complete Adventures if you want to dive right in. Note that to thwart credit farmers and spammers (like gold farmers in World of Warcraft and other games), the trial version limits the amount of daily in-game chat you can do and you can’t place buildings.
  • Create your character in Tarquinas galaxy. That’s where a friend and I established a guild and city three years ago, and I might be biased, but I think we have one of the best guilds in terms of helping other players there is. We rarely have trouble with jerks; they tend to leave the guild on their own—we’ve never had to boot a single player. We have an extensive collection of resources to kick-start a new avatar’s career. We don’t care what faction (Rebel, Imperial or civilian) you play or what profession you play as long as it’s fun for you. The guild is Unseen University (player association code: U-U), our player city is Ankh-Morpork on the planet Talus. (Yes, it’s incongruous, but we like Discworld. :P) When you create your character, don’t worry too much about appearance: Entertainers can completely alter your appearance in-game, including options that aren’t available during the character creation. Just make sure you get three things right: Your avatar name (don't make it long, stupid or hard to type), your avatar’s race, and your avatar’s gender. Those three things cannot be changed once the character is created without deleting it and starting over. Everything else, including your appearance (height, weight, eye and skin and hair colors, tattoos) and profession, can be changed in-game.
  • Run the tutorial. You’ll do this automatically unless you specifically clear the checkbox during character creation. It’s a handy way of getting XP and quickly getting to level 10. As soon as you are in the tutorial, enter /addf Ryph and then /addf Gasp in chat. This will add my two Tarquinas galaxy (server) avatars to your friends list and immediately notify you if I’m online. Usually I’m visible in-game even if I’m not truly online because I run SOE’s Station Launcher, which allows me to IM with in-game friends in any of SOE’s games, including SWG, without actually being in any game. I can get you into the guild even in the tutorial so you won’t have to wait on that. If I’m online, you can enter /t Ryph (or /t Gasp) followed by a message and press Enter to let me know when you are leaving the tutorial and entering the game proper. I’ll meet you in front of Mos Eisley starport, where your avatar will appear when you leave Tansarii Point Station (where the tutorial takes place), and we’ll get you squared away.
You can learn more about our guild here.

Right. This post is way long enough. Think about it.
Last edited by Retiarius on Thu Jan 01, 2009 4:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
I think outside the tesseract.

User avatar
Pfhreak
Posts: 576
Joined: Wed Aug 06, 2008 1:45 am
Location: La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Contact:

Re: MMORPGs

Post by Pfhreak »

I've been unemployed since moving to Argentina, over a year ago. Until I get good enough at writing that I actually get published or finish with my DNI paperwork so I can get a job here, even $15 a month is more than I can afford.
The wall of separation between church and state is a good start, but let's put in a minefield, too.

User avatar
Retiarius
Posts: 1020
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 10:09 pm
Location: Muskegon, Michigan, USA
Contact:

Re: MMORPGs

Post by Retiarius »

Pfhreak wrote:I've been unemployed since moving to Argentina, over a year ago. Until I get good enough at writing that I actually get published or finish with my DNI paperwork so I can get a job here, even $15 a month is more than I can afford.
That’s understandable. I’ve been in the same boat, so to speak. The only reason I’ve been able to afford it often is that I have no other entertainment budget at all, and sometimes even then a guild member bailed me out. (I maintain the bulk of the guild’s resource reports, tracking every inorganic and flora resource in-shift in Tarquinas galaxy, updated daily using a rather sophisticated program I wrote a few years ago. It gives the guild an edge, so they miss updates if I can’t do them. I also have a fairly extensive although by no means comprehensive set of help files I wrote for the game.) I’m doing better now, somewhat, but I do not blame you. As I tell players, “Real life always trumps game life.”

While Unseen University draws most of its membership from the United States, we do have players from other countries, usually Great Britain or overseas soldiers. Our guild’s primary Munitions Trader is a native of Germany.
Last edited by Retiarius on Wed Dec 31, 2008 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I think outside the tesseract.

User avatar
DMoness
Posts: 160
Joined: Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:35 pm
Location: At the borderline of imagination
Contact:

Re: MMORPGs

Post by DMoness »

I started with fly for fun(flyff) November 2005. Joined a nice guild in december. When that collapsed i started my own guild (that was may 17 2006) with the same idea behind is as the one i was in. Gaming is for fun everything else comes second. It was really fun (even though a few e-drama's along the way( 1 of those might have been my own fault)) until they released V9 which made the game total pk(changed after 2 weeks ). I talked to my guildies and we decided to move to another game (we didn't have one at that moment).

Then DOMO(dream of mirror online) started closed beta. Most of us like the game so we stayed. The Domo version of the guild was created 14 december 2007 and growing stronger every day.

Both games are free to play and has a cash shop ( though flyff is more and hanging against pay to play). The guild still follows the we play for fun rule everything else is second, though some people in it are a bit more competitive then others but that keeps it fun.
Image

User avatar
Tenjen
Friskeh Lynx Kitteh
Posts: 15751
Joined: Wed Nov 05, 2008 7:43 am
Location: doing his business in his litterbox. WTF YOU LOOKIN AT?!

Re: MMORPGs

Post by Tenjen »

no laptop yet and no cash for a prepaid card for WoW.

so most likely iam missing the entire xmas event : (

unless i pull a huge favor with someone or the other.
Affro Shaman of the Forum and Deranged Elder Lynx of the Caves. Perpetuater of warm-hearted irrelevance and lynx kitteh of affectionate inflictions.
ImageImageImage
Artemisia wrote:Wait...are we reenacting Ma3 here with ballistic cats?

User avatar
thaldin
Posts: 1305
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:43 pm

Re: MMORPGs

Post by thaldin »

Yeah, it ends today Tenjen =\

User avatar
Tenjen
Friskeh Lynx Kitteh
Posts: 15751
Joined: Wed Nov 05, 2008 7:43 am
Location: doing his business in his litterbox. WTF YOU LOOKIN AT?!

Re: MMORPGs

Post by Tenjen »

actually jan 2nd i think.
Affro Shaman of the Forum and Deranged Elder Lynx of the Caves. Perpetuater of warm-hearted irrelevance and lynx kitteh of affectionate inflictions.
ImageImageImage
Artemisia wrote:Wait...are we reenacting Ma3 here with ballistic cats?

User avatar
Asaryu
Tentacoo Goddess
Posts: 6602
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:06 am
Location: Sydney

Re: MMORPGs

Post by Asaryu »

I recently procured Xbox live.

id: Asaryu
Tentacoo-Goddess of the Bubblibaff, Gazer of the Southern Heavens and Mistress of Morals. She/Them. Judging you.

User avatar
thaldin
Posts: 1305
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:43 pm

Re: MMORPGs

Post by thaldin »

Whoot! My gamer tag is eabshire on XBox live
Was, now Thaldin
Last edited by thaldin on Tue Jun 23, 2009 3:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
LadySheDevil
Tittycakes
Posts: 2879
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:15 am
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: MMORPGs

Post by LadySheDevil »

W00tness! GT's in the sig. Feel free to stalk! :D (Though at the moment I'm a little preoccupied with GW on the lappy and Persona 4 on my trusty ol' PS2)
Vanishing Elder of the Noms; She who Plays With Madness; One Among the Fence; Tittycake Mistress.

~* \m/ Music is Love. \:D/ *~ ~* :-B Gaming too! :-B *~

Winner: Wet T-Shirt Contest, Ladies Division June '10

Faros
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2009 9:50 pm

Re: MMORPGs

Post by Faros »

I'm currently in the market for a new MMO. The first one I ever played was GunZ the Duel (Which was actually a TPS, not an RPG), which was a fun concept, but it got boring really, really fast. After that I played Shaiya, which was fun for a while, but it didn't have any real substance to it. I've been playing Guild Wars, but I've already beaten all of the campaigns, as well as the expansion pack, so there's not really all that much to do anymore besides pointless dungeon crawling and keg farming.

I've been thinking of playing Perfect World International, since I've heard some really great things about it, but I'm weary of playing another Korean MMO after Shaiya.

User avatar
CyanideAngel
Cookie Angel
Posts: 1531
Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:45 pm
Location: England
Contact:

Re: MMORPGs

Post by CyanideAngel »

Played World of Warcraft till i couldn't afford it

Now Play Perfect world :)
Amor vincit omnia Nil illegitimi carborundum Carpe Diem Carpe Noctem
winner of the 2009 cutest forumite contest (females)
Teach's Angel Kitty and assistant giver of hugs

Post Reply