Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - MMORPGs Cant live with them but OOH the addiction.

CyCo PL · 12-21-2005, 01:06 AM

Let's see...

I started playing a MUD called Core 2696 when I was 14 years old, it was my first online rpg addiction, I eventually became a coder for it and coded my own area that other people could explore and do quests in and stuff. It was an awesome feeling to see people enjoying your work, and is probably one of the main reasons I want to become a video game developer now. Core 2696 shut down in 1998 and started back up as a completely new mud called Core 2648 (now referred to as Core 2655, since it corresponds to whatever year it is now, which is 2005), which was supposed to be 50 years before Core 2696 took place. I didn't like the new MUD and moved on to a new one.

I started playing a mud called Myths and Legends when I left core and I was addicted to that for a couple years. The mud was extremely broken and had many bugs that I often took advantage of to level myself up quickly. I constantly deleted my character and abused bugs to level my new characters up. The community is what kept me playing though, it had a very small playerbase and we all talked to each other quite often, and everybody "knew" each other. This was good, but sometimes it resulted in lots of drama.

I fell out of playing Myths and Legends when I started playing Everquest. I loved Everquest at first, it was like playing a mud, but with graphics! But it was also much more time consuming. In the time it took me to get to level 10 in everquest, I could have made it to at least 20 or 30 in myths and legends. My short attention span eventually killed any interest I had in everquest. I still cringe when I think about camping kobolds and skeletons in steamfont mountains for hours every day.

I moved to Ultima Online after that, just to try it out. I didn't play it after the free month was up, because I thought it was incredibly boring. Slow paced combat. Slow paced EVERYTHING. I hated it.

Next was Asheron's call, I played that for a good three years. I loved AC because it was fast paced, and the PvP server was ruthless but rewarding. For the first few months AC was out, the PvP server was so much fun. Everybody was learning how to play the game and what the advantages and disadvantages to all of the character builds were. At the beginning, everybody made archers because long distance killing was the "way to go" in PvP. I remember many instances where I was just standing there, and I fall over dead immediately because I got shot by a fully buffed greater elemental arrow or whatever. You had to constantly be moving and looking out. I used to log out of the game just to go pee, because I would constantly come back to the computer to find myself dead and looted if I didn't. Eventually, third party programs and unattended combat macros overran that game, and the developers decided that instead of fixing the problem, they would just make the game harder because of the third party programs. They changed all of the spawn points of monsters, so level 90+ monsters were spawning in areas that normally had level 40 monsters. This wasn't a huge problem for players that powerleveled and used buffbots (unattended bots that were run by players and gave free level 7 buffs at the allegiance mansion), but people who were actually around that level that used their own buffs couldn't stand up to them. AC just stopped being fun for me when the devs stopped caring about balance and only cared about keeping their playerbase.

I jumped between a few games after that... I played AO for a while, got up to about level 80 adventurer. AO is actually a pretty fun game, but it got pretty boring and repetitive pretty fast. Pumping missions over and over was fun when playing with my ig friends, but they weren't on all of the time, and eventually they weren't on at all, so I stopped playing.

FFXI is probably the mmorpg that consumed the most of my time, but that's mainly because it HAS to consume a lot of time to be played. Waiting for parties, leveling up with a party, camping monsters for loot, it all takes so much time. But I enjoyed FFXI a lot, because a lot of my RL friends played. It gave me a reason to keep playing, and I think I logged about 60 days into my main character before I ended up quitting. I also had another character that I think I put about 10 days play time into. I quit that game because it seemed that the only way to make money was to camp NM's. I can't stand camping anything, and it's almost required in FFXI. Also, if you play a job that isn't a "necessity" in a group (basically any melee damage dealer), you can find yourself sitting around for literally hours waiting for a group to pick you up. If you play a melee damage dealer, you really have to learn how to take initiative and create your own groups, because lots of groups won't pick you up because you're not vital to their survival. Fortunately I always played jobs that were really useful in groups and I usually found them pretty easily (I had 55rdm, 50whm, 37blm, 35nin, 30pld, 30war, don't remember what else).

I played City of Heroes for a month or two, but never really got into it. Awesome character creation, but the game itself seems very simplistic. There's not really enough depth to the game. I heard a lot has changed since it first came out though, so I might give it another shot sometime later.

I play WoW now, and I like it a lot. It has fast paced combat, and extremely solid PvP. Running around Stranglethorn Vale looking for people to kill reminds me of the good ol' days playing Asheron's Call on the pk server. I also really like how you can actually solo effectively, so you can just log on and play for 30 minutes without feeling like you wasted your time.

I still find myself going to mudconnect.com and looking for muds to play though. A good MUD with a good community can be better than any MMORPG out there. There's still a couple really good muds up there right now, like Purple Dragon MUD (http://pdragon.org/), and Core 2655 (http://www.coremud.org/), if you don't mind reading instead of looking at pictures, you might enjoy them.

12-21-2005, 01:06 AM	#18 (permalink)
CyCo PL Addict Location: Tulsa, OK	Let's see... I started playing a MUD called Core 2696 when I was 14 years old, it was my first online rpg addiction, I eventually became a coder for it and coded my own area that other people could explore and do quests in and stuff. It was an awesome feeling to see people enjoying your work, and is probably one of the main reasons I want to become a video game developer now. Core 2696 shut down in 1998 and started back up as a completely new mud called Core 2648 (now referred to as Core 2655, since it corresponds to whatever year it is now, which is 2005), which was supposed to be 50 years before Core 2696 took place. I didn't like the new MUD and moved on to a new one. I started playing a mud called Myths and Legends when I left core and I was addicted to that for a couple years. The mud was extremely broken and had many bugs that I often took advantage of to level myself up quickly. I constantly deleted my character and abused bugs to level my new characters up. The community is what kept me playing though, it had a very small playerbase and we all talked to each other quite often, and everybody "knew" each other. This was good, but sometimes it resulted in lots of drama. I fell out of playing Myths and Legends when I started playing Everquest. I loved Everquest at first, it was like playing a mud, but with graphics! But it was also much more time consuming. In the time it took me to get to level 10 in everquest, I could have made it to at least 20 or 30 in myths and legends. My short attention span eventually killed any interest I had in everquest. I still cringe when I think about camping kobolds and skeletons in steamfont mountains for hours every day. I moved to Ultima Online after that, just to try it out. I didn't play it after the free month was up, because I thought it was incredibly boring. Slow paced combat. Slow paced EVERYTHING. I hated it. Next was Asheron's call, I played that for a good three years. I loved AC because it was fast paced, and the PvP server was ruthless but rewarding. For the first few months AC was out, the PvP server was so much fun. Everybody was learning how to play the game and what the advantages and disadvantages to all of the character builds were. At the beginning, everybody made archers because long distance killing was the "way to go" in PvP. I remember many instances where I was just standing there, and I fall over dead immediately because I got shot by a fully buffed greater elemental arrow or whatever. You had to constantly be moving and looking out. I used to log out of the game just to go pee, because I would constantly come back to the computer to find myself dead and looted if I didn't. Eventually, third party programs and unattended combat macros overran that game, and the developers decided that instead of fixing the problem, they would just make the game harder because of the third party programs. They changed all of the spawn points of monsters, so level 90+ monsters were spawning in areas that normally had level 40 monsters. This wasn't a huge problem for players that powerleveled and used buffbots (unattended bots that were run by players and gave free level 7 buffs at the allegiance mansion), but people who were actually around that level that used their own buffs couldn't stand up to them. AC just stopped being fun for me when the devs stopped caring about balance and only cared about keeping their playerbase. I jumped between a few games after that... I played AO for a while, got up to about level 80 adventurer. AO is actually a pretty fun game, but it got pretty boring and repetitive pretty fast. Pumping missions over and over was fun when playing with my ig friends, but they weren't on all of the time, and eventually they weren't on at all, so I stopped playing. FFXI is probably the mmorpg that consumed the most of my time, but that's mainly because it HAS to consume a lot of time to be played. Waiting for parties, leveling up with a party, camping monsters for loot, it all takes so much time. But I enjoyed FFXI a lot, because a lot of my RL friends played. It gave me a reason to keep playing, and I think I logged about 60 days into my main character before I ended up quitting. I also had another character that I think I put about 10 days play time into. I quit that game because it seemed that the only way to make money was to camp NM's. I can't stand camping anything, and it's almost required in FFXI. Also, if you play a job that isn't a "necessity" in a group (basically any melee damage dealer), you can find yourself sitting around for literally hours waiting for a group to pick you up. If you play a melee damage dealer, you really have to learn how to take initiative and create your own groups, because lots of groups won't pick you up because you're not vital to their survival. Fortunately I always played jobs that were really useful in groups and I usually found them pretty easily (I had 55rdm, 50whm, 37blm, 35nin, 30pld, 30war, don't remember what else). I played City of Heroes for a month or two, but never really got into it. Awesome character creation, but the game itself seems very simplistic. There's not really enough depth to the game. I heard a lot has changed since it first came out though, so I might give it another shot sometime later. I play WoW now, and I like it a lot. It has fast paced combat, and extremely solid PvP. Running around Stranglethorn Vale looking for people to kill reminds me of the good ol' days playing Asheron's Call on the pk server. I also really like how you can actually solo effectively, so you can just log on and play for 30 minutes without feeling like you wasted your time. I still find myself going to mudconnect.com and looking for muds to play though. A good MUD with a good community can be better than any MMORPG out there. There's still a couple really good muds up there right now, like Purple Dragon MUD (http://pdragon.org/), and Core 2655 (http://www.coremud.org/), if you don't mind reading instead of looking at pictures, you might enjoy them.